


Falling Like the Fahrenheit

by calicokat



Series: Release my heart | Unfold my tongue [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-04 23:59:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 122,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calicokat/pseuds/calicokat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/450623">"Poetry for the Poisoned"</a> Thor did battle against the damages Thanos wrought upon his younger brother, with unexpected and permanent consequences for the bond between them. </p><p>Now lovers, the rekindled bond between them does not change that the Tesseract rests in the vaults of Asgard. Thanos approaches. For Asgard and for Earth, there is no choice but war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Undying gratitude to RexLuscus for undertaking the Herculean effort of bringing the fic from alpha to beta. A warm thanks to redferret, and Drooling Fan Girl for test reading this fic and catching additional snafus.
> 
> Marvel's The Avengers and all related properties TM & © 2012 Paramount Pictures and MVL Film Finance LLC., © and TM Marvel & Subs. and are used without permission.

**(Now: Vanaheimr)**

Blizzard winds roar across the frozen wastes of Útgarðar, a broken landscape of knife-sharp, jagged rocks.

Loki Liesmith, son of Laufey and son of Odin, stands with glacier-blue skin and red eyes amid the driving snow. His upper body is bare and his loins girded by steel and hide in the tradition of his forebears. From the helm grasping his bald head curve fearsome horns robust with ridges. His fingernails are as black as frostbite. 

He bears no sex organs, neither navel nor nipples nor cock nor cunt, for Jötunn are a primordial race birthed from the first raw elements of a nascent universe. Young Jötnar condensate within their progenitors.

A Jötunn once and The Cask of Ancient Winters twice contended against Odin's sorcery, but neither succeeded at forcing Loki into this primitive, abhorrent form.

The Jötunn stronghold that stands before him is a mighty shadow against the grey sky, her twin towers monuments to jealous vanity from which the Jötnar survey the vast tracts of stony, bleak glacier they call "empire."

Jötunheimr this is, but it is Jötunheimr as Loki has never before seen it. Great pillars line the avenue leading to the stronghold. Each is a single column of solid rock, attesting to the inconceivable feat of the stonemasons of old carving these wonders from the bodies of mountains and carrying them to where they now stand sentry.

Loki walks the empty avenue, bright, fresh snow crunching under his bare feet. Beyond the lines of pillars stand buildings hewn from ice. Homes, perhaps, or establishments of commerce – all empty, silent and still. Their shaved surfaces boast of the considerable prowess of Jötunn architects, loath as Loki is to acknowledge it. 

Now Loki comes to the stronghold's courtyard, sheltered from the wind by high walls. Dark paving stone carved with geometric designs lies revealed between snow drifts. Loki's gaze travels to the balcony where years of late he first saw his blood father. There stands upon it a regal and imposing throne framed by pristine masonry – not the decrepit, broken seat Loki remembers. 

Loki must assume sloth allowed this public court to have since fallen into such disrepair.

The stronghold confronting Loki is built of stone, not ice, as eternal temple and tribute to the Jötnar's progenitor Ymir, who they call Aurgelmir. How splendid its face. Loki was on dangerous business and never studied it when he stood here before. The regularity of the ornamental carvings becomes fantastic by virtue of its complexity. Ten thousand or more square pillars have been carved into the stronghold's walls, one against another, such that what was rock appears to the beholder crystalline: halite or pyrite. Icicles bedeck its contours, glittering in the winter-grey light.

Loki's bald, ridge-marked brow narrows and he frowns, grinding his fearsome, serrated teeth. Determined to press forward though he despises his destination, he takes to the staircase leading into the stronghold's depths. It is a small entryway for a fortress so vast, but in being small offers the advantage of being defensible with a detail of as few as two Jötnar. Loki remembers the plunge of his stomach as giants poured into the closed courtyard behind him from above. Should he have been the architect in charge the stronghold's design he could have fortified it no better.

He enters into a marvelous hall. The feet of sturdy pillars stand upon the richly engraved floor. They do not reach the ceiling but instead are met by tremendous stalactites of frozen water. The columns are equal parts product of craftsmanship and feat of water. Grey light from the high, open windows gleams through them at prismatic angles.

The throne of Jötunheimr stands at the back of this hall and beside it stands a single Jötunn as slight of stature as Loki himself. The Jötunn's penetrating, red-eyed gaze holds all of the intellect Loki has ever seen in the eyes of their breed. Only in the eyes of Laufey and in mirrors has Loki measured like perspicacity. Distrust of the stranger follows instantly.

The Jötunn presents the stone seat to Asgard's prince with a flourish of his hand.

"Your throne awaits." 

Loki stands defiant and sneering, a fist upon his hip.

"Let it wait forever empty. I have no desire to rule from it."

The stranger steps lightly on the frozen floor, swaying as if to music. He twirls – lifting his arms as if conducting an unseen orchestra. When he is again facing Loki he falls into the throne, sprawling there with the heel of one foot in the seat and his other leg cast wide. He drags his black nails against the arm of the mighty chair, scraping loose flecks of ice.

His gaze lies upon Loki; his penetrating attention unusually disquieting.

"The one throne which is yours by right is the one throne you reject," the Jötunn says.

Instinct warns Loki this is no Jötunn at all.

In the world of the flesh, in the goddess Freyja's hall of Sessrúmnir, Loki's body sits unconscious upon a seiðhjallur – the high, isolated terrace where he has entranced himself and left to walk the paths of the spirits.

He speaks a charm of true-seeing. In this plane of will, the air around him ripples with his words. The charm rolls from him in waves, but fails to wash the spirit free of its Jötunn form. The creature leers at Loki, its sick grin equal parts pride and malice.

Loki maintains stoicism. He did not cower before the Other, nor Thanos, nor after his defeat at the hands of the Avengers.

He does not intend to ever cower.

"You forget, whatever thing you are, that I was ennobled the legitimate ruler of Asgard – or mayhap you knew it not, and so I pardon you."

The creature holds up one finger, face still distended by that evil grin.

"That brief chapter in your history concluded with your dearest friends, your brother and your father stripping you of your kingship."

Loki does not deny it. He holds his tongue before anger misuses it.

The thing in the chair lowers its hand and leans forward, hate-filled and hungering, voice black with vehemence. 

"The kindest they who adored you offered was ignominy. Imagine, then, if your public had learned of your perverted heritage. A funeral pyre they would have built for their king, and lashed you atop it. Loki – king – would have burned to death screaming."

The small muscles of Loki's brow tighten without flinching. He has worked out what manner of monster confronts him.

"I need no reminders and no instruction. Neither my recent failures nor the injustices visited upon me have so lowered my standards that I would shame myself by exerting lordship over a waste peopled by brute, cannibal serfs crystallized from the discharge of Ginnungagap at the world's creation," he says. "Better no throne at all than lord of the afterbirth of cosmogenesis."

The false-Jötunn's intensity dissipates. He slumps back in the deep stone seat. His leer gives way to ennui and for a silent minute he broods.

"You undersell your kinsman, Jötunn," he decides aloud, glint returning to his eyes. "I suspect that it is not the Jötnar but instead their native aesthetic that you detest. What they lack in cultural refinement they compensate for with their history of unchecked cruelty and violence. Must not one be clever to be truly cruel?"

Loki stands unmoved, disallowing his thoughts to follow where the spirit would lead them, but he now speaks courteously.

"For what have you brought me here, devil? What prize do you seek in turning my thoughts to Jötunheimr?"

The spacious throne room echoes with the slow clapping of the unimpressed-looking false Jötunn reclined upon Loki's forefathers' throne.

It draws itself to its feet, pretense falling away in roiling steam stinking of sulfur and serpentine, living shadows.

This devil is the crimson of crocosmia – the bright, saffron-red irises aptly, it seems, called Lucifer's flowers. Male bodied, he is cloaked in scarlet. His face is elongated to evil effect. He has ears like a bat, and his hair, the brown of dried blood, grows wild. He is eyeless. Where his eyes should be blazes an almost-blinding inner light. His mouth, like Loki's, is full of sharp teeth.

He strides forward from the throne to stand before Loki and bows in the manner of a gentleman of Europe or Asia, a formality Loki, with regal impertinence, does not return. Unconcerned and wearing a smile, the devil speaks plainly:

"The might of the great contenders for cosmic power coalesces around the Cosmic Cube hidden in your father's vaults. I would be an imbecile if I failed to cultivate as healthy a prospect as you."

Loki shakes his bald, horned head. He has been given instruction in the danger inherent if an evil spirit leads a conversation. He speaks as a prince to a supplicant – dismissively.

"You but flatter me."

"You have amounted to little these two millennia, it's true," the devil agrees. It reaches up, touching its fingertips to Loki's naked breast. When Loki neglects to recoil it steps in, canting its head, speaking seductively. "A spark of greatness, the first ember of a will indomitable, burns in you. Devils who now call themselves great in Hell have had less illustrious starts than yours."

"More flattery," Loki says, tone flat and bored.

"Flattery," the devil agrees. "But not lies."

Its exhales not the scent sulfur but the perfumes of hedonism: incense, myrrh, opium, sandalwood and clove.

Loki owns countless perfumes bottled in every conceivable container. He cannot be roused to appreciate it. On the contrary, the devil's intimacy rankles him. His face contorts with annoyance.

He is Loki, prince and sorcerer, and though young among immortals his ire is relentless.

The devil must know it, for it relents, withdrawing its touch. 

"Remember it was no fault of mine we couldn't make happy conversation. Flattery comingled with lies makes for the fastest friends," it says, then produces with affected reluctance: "Your future looks bleak from where I'm standing, tainted as you are by the festering sore called love."

This Loki's quick mind latches onto. He attends the devil more closely. Seeing it has achieved his audience, the creature continues, paying closer attention to Loki in return.

"Love is the terror that one's own power should be insufficient to perpetuate the one's survival – a grasping need for succor from those least equipped to provide it. Love marries two creatures wracked with self-doubt – two sodden pieces of flotsam on a storm wracked sea – into an unmoored union bound to splinter upon the mighty shoal of a creature supreme unto itself and as such indivisible."

The question transports Loki worlds away. A flood of memories of entertaining guests in Odin's halls and of sitting, himself, by unfamiliar hearths is a stinging reminder he is not always the monster he now appears. It is tradition among the Æsir and Vanir for hosts and guests to test each other in battles of wisdom, posing questions about far places, historic events and the nature of being. Loki is often the victor in such contests.

Loki thinks of Thor: laughter at jokes shared, warm, calloused fingers on Loki's body, warriors together back to back amidst the melee, a relentless belief in the best Loki can be.

"In love, the fire that dries the flotsam. In love, the shipwright that joins the joints and wedges in the trenails that prove the ship watertight. In love, the oarsmen that row upon stormy waters. In love, the anchor that holds steadfast the ship that she not crash upon the shoal."

The devil sneers with annoyance in his turn. Loki wears a gloating smile.

"Now, a question of my own. I said when I took to the seiðhjallur and called the spirits: 'I seek accomplices, not masters! Which one of you will grow your glory alongside mine?' Will you wed me here today in my ancestor's home, my aims your aims, my glory yours and so, too, my failures?"

The devil raises a hand to buy stillness. Its lips peel back into a shark-toothed grin.

"You ask us, the creatures not of flesh but of will, to marry our might to yours and in matrimony contend against the Titan, Thanos. Your chance of victory is remote, so the manner of deal you seek to make is indeed the kind of gamble only devils take. Only devils glory both in the victory of their champions and their champions' deepest despair. But, Loki, called Silvertongue and Sin-Sly, you'll find no devil to aid you content only to bask in your victory. Not even the meekest among us would ally itself with you save that a debt is incurred upon which you'll owe interest."

Loki laughs. His Jötunn tongue is black behind the icy razors of his teeth. His venomously keen eyes are like two red stones.

"Already I have your advice for free. A little patience and mayhap I'll have more of you."

The devil joins Loki in laughter. An anticipatory, serpentine tongue slides over its grinning lips.

"Brag about it to the wizened Áss that salvaged you when Laufey abandoned you to the wastes if that day ever comes, for the Allfather has never had the better of Mephisto."

The devil is gone.

Where two once stood in the stronghold at the heart of Útgarðar now Loki stands alone.

The prince casts his gaze over the walls of the throne room. The snow outside has intensified. The high windows let in blizzard-white light. Shadowy, narrow staircases lead away into the heights and depths of the fortress.

Loki walks to the foot of the five stairs up to his birth-father's throne. Massive as it is, a paltry prize it would make compared to the mighty golden throne of Asgard, rich in scrollwork.

Loki declines to try the seat, but he stands a long time looking.

He opens his eyes in Sessrúmnir.

Her walls are pristine white and the ceiling above the seiðhjallur open to the sky. The seer's chair, squared under it, stands some twelve feet aloft. The curled tips of vines intruding from the roof they gild in green hang just above eye level. Sunlight warms Loki's skin, but it has rained while he was away. He brushes a wet strand of black hair from his forehead. The vines drip around him, shedding glistening beads that plink in the water-filled, carved moat surrounding the terrace. Such channels are the arteries of Freyja's plant-rich palace.

Loki descends the seiðhjallur, limbs stiff from inactivity. He began his sitting at midnight and passed through dead-haunted and faerie lands upon the journey that led him to that ephemeral mirror of Jötunheimr. He knows not if he has been gone for hours or for days.

He seeks Thor, asking the birds that roost in the palace the way, for Lady Freyja has imparted to him the charm of parlance in bird's tongue.

\----

Thor has come to adjust to the pace of life at Sessrúmnir, but the Vanir live little like their Æsir comrades. The golden palace of Glaðsheimr where Odin presides teems with straight-backed, armor clad guards by whose shift changes Thor can count the hours without spying the sky.

Here in Sessrúmnir open roofs are ever above. Vanir appear, by comparison, unconcerned with security. A handful of ceremonial guards, dressed in cloth, stand its halls each shift. Thor knows well the Vanir are no less warlike than the Æsir. Once, in a time long past, their well-matched races warred. Now the Vanir oft join the might of Vanaheimr with Asgard's in battle.

Contrary to Glaðsheimr, the fastness of their palace is guaranteed by the network of plant and animal life woven across dead stone. Day and night the melodies of bird's songs echo through its halls and hallways – songs rich in meaning to siði, the workers of seiðr, but to Thor only music. He sees the virtue of such a network. No doubt the soldiers of Sessrúmnir can respond to an isolated threat at full strength the more swiftly. The equally valiant warriors of Glaðsheimr man its walls at the call of Heimdall's trumpet, Gjallarhorn. The war-wary Thor has nonetheless been slow to adjust to the atmosphere of quiet peace presiding over this palace. His instincts warn him against idling hours away without thought to martial order.

He lacks not Vanir to test his strength against. Many a Vanr is strong in hamhleypa – the shifting of their shape. His opponents not only wield spear, sword, axe and lance but wrestle him as bears, wolves and boars. He does magnificent battle with them upon the surrounding field of Folkvang, leaving furrows scented of crushed grass where boots and claws dig into the soil. That is Thor's pleasure while elsewhere Loki learns of seiðr from Freya.

He has no appetite for battle, today. Loki has spent a long time sitting for wisdom and the practice of leaving his body behind is not without its dangers. Thor has retreated to a small interior garden freshly wet, its leaves all gleaming from the recent downpour, tortured by thoughts of his brother once again walking other worlds beyond reach of his help. He holds Mjölnir by her handle, knuckles white, glaring into her star-forged head of uru. At the heart of her a star still burns. Thor has been named equally formidable to Loki in magic, but subtle workings are for women and ergi, woman-like men. Thor relies on feeding Mjölnir his power and so rouses her to wondrous feats.

He never wondered until these recent days spent watching Loki hone his craft if breaking heads, carrying him through the sky and calling the storm is the limit of what Mjölnir's magic can achieve – those are questions for a rune-crafty dwarf; not a Vanr or Áss.

Loki's voice, softened with concern, disturbs his brooding. 

"Bad news from home, brother?"

Thor looks to him with undisguised relief, shaking his head.

"You were long in the high seat."

Loki's eyes widen in a rare moment of undisguised wonder. His cheeks flush with color. Thor laughs; gentle laughter, and fond. Thor knows not if Loki's sudden shyness is that of a lover or an attention-hungry little brother – 

No, doubtlessly it is both. Thor is still surprised how Loki comes alive with his attention.

How many years did he waste not spending it upon him freely?

Loki, drenched from the rain, black hair wet and clothes hanging heavy on him, has composed himself. His gaze shifts to the side, to the moss verdant on the stones of the little garden's waterfall. His brow narrows. He speaks, but his voice is hollow.

"It means only that I grow in power. I confess I am weary from exercising it."

Thor sets Mjölnir down beside him. He understands that Loki seeks succor, otherwise his brother would hide his troubles.

"It's more than that," Thor proposes. Loki's silence is his answer. Formidable protective instincts roused, Thor offers out his arm that Loki might sit under it. "Come to me, and share your cares."

Loki remains where he stands, but he now gives Thor his full attention. Thor has learned to read the little signs of Loki's spells of black anxiety, a vocabulary that overlaps with the dictionary by which Thor reads fear in his enemies. His lover is wracked with nervous energy and his voice is quiet:

"You know, Thor, that I am Jötunn – of that race which we despise."

This is a conversation Thor has dreaded, but left to Loki to dredge up. Loki's volatility forbids tangled inquiries. Thor thinks of Jötnar: huge brutes bristling with ice, their snarling maws full of serrated teeth, red eyes like two angry carbuncles in their faces.

If he misplaces his words Loki will spit venom until nightfall. Enduring until Loki trusts again is as explosive a contest as wrestling a Vanr.

Thor has slain countless Jötunn. He lowers his arm, for Loki will not approach him. He prays his voice can express the breadth of his sincerity.

"I know, also, that you are Loki, and Loki you have always been." His own brow knits in turn as his earnesty, difficult to express, deepens. "There must then be more to the Jötnar than I had been willing to give them credit for these two millennia past."

Nerves shatter into malice. Loki cackles, hysteria staining his cracking voice.

"Does Thor crown prince of Asgard speak, or his naivety? Like a _child_ you believe I can overcome the cannibal history of my forebears, yet have we not seen me moved to greatest violence? Have you not seen that violence poured out upon the jewel called Midgard you so prize?"

Thor hates to see his brother like this. Loki's gaze digs for confirmation of his paranoid conviction. Malevolence pours from his poise. It is no more than a subtle line of tension across his shoulders, but Thor knows Loki too well to miss the imminent threat of violence.

He searches himself for what wisdom he has inherited, gleaned from a life in a culture of celebrated skalds. He thinks hard in silence before he speaks but when he speaks is sure:

"I have in my time been reckless, angry, domineering. I have been cruel and abusive, and _I_ am Áss. Mayhap the blood in the veins of a man or a god is only that which nourishes and sustains the body and has no sway over the spirit – little influence over the nature of the soul enshrined within the flesh."

Loki scoffs, hungry for a fight now, moody and spoilt and purposefully abrasive. 

"I'll have no philosophy from a man with a head as thick as a stone."

Thor knows the deep scars left by Thanos drive his moody paramour to sudden heights of aggression, but old habits of brotherly rivalry are stirring up his ire. He pleads for peace with a searching gaze.

"Must you keep yourself such a mystery to me? What is it that compels you to hold counsel with Loki and Loki alone?"

Loki waits a beat until he discerns he has failed to provoke the fight in Thor. He sourly relents, tension slumping from his shoulders.

"Few of the thoughts that race through my mind would be to your liking. I will not risk your displeasure when nothing may come of the speculations and schemes that circle in my mind." His voice hardens, stone certain: "The insecurities that haunt me would to you seem foolish and even insulting. You implore me for them now, but better you left wondering in chagrin than to have you incensed and demanding explanations of me."

Loki has seized victory through surrender. Thor's temper kicks like a riled bull.

Millennia passed in competitive brotherhood leave Thor loathing when Loki speaks down to him. Thor has asked again and again to be trusted with explanations of Loki's shifting moods. He has begged him for them to no effect. 

His outrage that Loki decided without trying him that he could not maturely handle whatever facts sweeps aside thoughts of anything else. Anger has whet Thor's tongue into an instrument of Loki's disembowelment. Thor holds it despite the tightness at his temples and in his throat that retribution would alleviate, determined to deny Loki the satisfaction of a shouting match.

Loki makes himself sweet with widened eyes and boyish hesitance. The years melt from his face. He is timelessly innocent.

Thor grimaces and looks away. He battles to maintain his clutch upon the anger he deserves to feel at Loki's purposeful neglect and is victorious, resentment steeling him against Loki's first ploy to win forgiveness in light of losing the contest.

Loki quietly approaches him, footsteps silent on the paving stones. Thor turns a scowl on him as Loki cautiously lowers himself to the ground and sits at his side, moving with all possible care. Thor makes it no secret that he's angry enough to punch him, his hands clenched to fists. At these tension-rife junctures they are all of two hundred again – Frigga's scrapping little boys: both arrogant, the one brash and the other snobbish.

A subtle shift in body language Loki reminds him they are boys no longer, but men.

Loki first touches Thor's cheek and then leans over to press his lips to Thor's. Thor shuts his eyes and except for breathing sits statue still. Loki persists at kissing him, leaving a broader and broader swathe of skin slick with spit.

The iron knot of indifference in Thor's breast rises in temperature as Loki plies Thor with kisses. Now it's searing hot, now molten – become liquid. Now that heat suffuses Thor's chest and arousal blazes through his cock, calling on him to let bygones be.

The collapse of Thor's tensions and with them Thor's defiance announces Loki's second successive triumph; Thor's need-thick groan affirms it. He turns his head into the kiss.

Loki's hands make fast work of dispatching Thor's cloak as their mouths so pleasurably duel and next long fingers are sliding up beneath Thor's breastplate to unfasten Thor's leather trousers. Their nimble workings brush across and press against Thor's stirring cock, brief pleasures promising greater pleasure to come.

Loki pauses to whistle, his birdlike twittering answered in kind by some nearby nuthatch.

He smiles impishly as he pulls off Thor's boots and aids Thor in stripping his legs bare.

"Quite the secluded refuge you chose to fret in. There are no Vanir near to us. I'll have warning of any that approach. I am not over concerned about birds and rabbits spying me making love to your cock."

The expectations conjured by the words fill Thor with so powerful an ache of longing it's as if his breast has been pulled in half.

Thor wonders when Loki acquired his unbridled sexual prowess. How many days did Thor spend bashing opponents on the training grounds while in the shadows Loki sampled the flesh of paramours unknown to Thor?

Loki leaves Thor half naked and comfortable now that he has his brother's cock hard enough for Thor to forgive and forget. The trickster dispatches with a few of his own garments until he is clothed in but the steel, leather and fabric of his attire that flatter and reveal his narrow, muscular frame. Thor looks upon him appreciatively, yearning after the pale skin hidden by Loki's tailored trappings; already he prefers Loki dressed down.

In a forge a galaxy away Loki wrought armor engraved with the Fenris Wolf and World Serpent from the Human myth of Ragnarök. He has yet to forsake those ominous trappings; he visibly enjoys their disquieting effect on other Asgardians. Thor would prefer them discarded.

Loki's smile widens to a grin as he exults in holding Thor's complete attention and so the reins of power.

_"Crawl," Loki whispers, his word a command, sprawled upon the skins of vanquished beasts strewn before their blazing fireplace. His cock lies insouciantly against his abdomen, while his long, pale thighs lay open, offering full sight of his lightly haired perineum where that soft, taut line of skin stretches between his tightened balls and the puckered flesh of his anus – a pucker shining wet with freshly and liberally applied oil._

_The word burns in Thor's ears. It promises a powerful body given up to penetration; a lover assuaged, that Thor may be free with both his lust and his hands. Thor crawls. On hands and knees he covers the floor, both bare and pelt-covered, that separates them. Triumph gleams in Loki's eyes. Loki sinks back against the skins as Thor crawls over him. Thor's gaze is fierce and ravenous and Loki takes pause in breathless wonder._

_Thor crawled on command, but next Loki is whimpering and cursing beneath him as Thor gives his saucy little brother a taste of his ardor._

Loki bids Thor sit upon the lip of the pool with the waterfall that feeds it coursing behind him. The lyrical cascade of the rushing water softens all sounds from beyond the garden, strengthening the illusion that theirs is a private retreat. The damp stone is cool beneath Thor's bare buttocks. His balls rest against the coarse, stony edge of his seat. 

Loki pushes Thor's knees wide, making room for himself between his brother's muscle-thick thighs. He takes Thor's low-hanging, semi-aroused cock into his mouth. The organ firms and lengthens under his passionate attention.

The thunder god revels in the debauched sight of his rain-wet lover dutifully nursing the erection that soon stands high. Loki's long fingers wrap around the lower length of Thor's cock as he rises a little on his knees, and Thor shudders under Loki's cool, damp touch. It is still with some disbelief that he looks upon his little brother engrossed in pleasuring him, applying the suction of his lips and the stroke of his tongue. Loki is half-lidded eyes, slanted cheekbones and the straight, flat bridge of his nose, a high forehead and wet, black hair swept back close to his scalp as he bobs forward and back, dragging Thor's pleasure with him. He has gathered his long body at Thor's feet, knees folded beneath him, its strength undeniable and undiminished. The cool fingertips of Loki's free hand rest on Thor's inner thigh, near his knee, subtle contact as electric as Mjölnir's power crackling across Thor's skin. 

His brother relinquishes his suction with a lurid slurp, Loki's eyes two pale jades sparkling with mischief that trail up Thor's armored body to savor Thor's rapt gaze. 

He moves back upon the pavement to lower himself further, one hand grasping at Thor's waist, fingernails digging at his breastplate for traction. He leans down and in to take one of Thor's balls into his mouth, soaking the wiry hair growing from it in curls with his saliva as he rolls the soft testicle inside it on his tongue. He lavishes the same ministrations on the second. Thor's eyelids flicker, yearning to shut as he contends with the powerful vulnerability Loki simultaneously exposes and carnally rewards.

Thor's pulse throbs in his cock. His own fingernails scrape across the pool's stone edging as he fights off the urge to grasp a handful of Loki's hair. Loki is shrewd about the limits of Thor's patience and endurance; his affections are temporarily withdrawn, leaving Thor at the dizzy edge of orgasm.

"What a throne you'd make for me," Loki drawls as he eyes Thor's erection, smiling as if enjoying a private joke.

The licentious implications wring a deep groan from Thor.

When Thor's emotions have retreated, Loki begins to lick his way up his brother's rigid shaft, now leaking precum from its crown. Breathing heavily, Thor regards him in reverent silence.

Loki is possessed of a noble beauty, and Loki is proud: proud to be fellating his older brother's cock, a fact all but incomprehensible when Loki invested so much so violently in asserting his independence. Pride and confidence firm each purposeful, ostentatious stroke of Loki's tongue. This gentler demand to be seen overwhelms Thor with as much emotion as Loki's rebellion.

Thor can only barely grasp how beautiful Loki is to him and that what they share is real. Loki's earlier transgressions are all but forgotten. 

Thor murmurs his brother's name once, and once again: "Loki…"

His lover takes his cock in hand, easing it down to an angle amenable for someday taking back into his mouth. 

Loki's lips slide along his length, a wet velvet caress. Each time he withdraws it is to the ridges outstanding at the bottom of its head, and then down he sinks again. Bliss overcomes Thor every sense. The scent of water, wet plant life, and the wet leather of Loki's armor hangs in the humid air. Loki's thumb strokes long caresses along the thick, spongy flesh on the underside of Thor's erection as Loki tongues hard the underside of Thor's cock's head, stroking narrow crevasse of flesh punctuated at its height by Thor's slit from which precum flows freely.

Thor's cock spasms once in his grasp. Loki withdraws, making a shushing sound at its dusky pink crown as if soothing a child or an animal. He flicks his tongue against the slit; a tiny, torturous lick.

"You remain a cruel tease," Thor accuses, voice roughened by the deep pleasure he takes in such agonies.

"Your cock and I have an understanding," Loki says. "I'm training it up to behave in ways that please me."

"And your older brother is only an accessory to his cock?"

"An attractive accessory – never fear that you'll be forgotten."

Loki's hand strokes Thor's long shaft all the while as they banter, keeping Thor's flesh stoked to a roaring heat beneath his touch.

Another spasm beneath Loki's grasp.

"You'll be sore with me if I'm spent early," Thor warns, voice sticking.

He does not relish the thought of Loki returning to sulking. Loki is opposed to Thor coming on his face, as sweetly willing as Thor may be to lick his own offending semen off.

Loki hums in contemplative agreement. He continues humming when he has Thor's erection in his mouth again. The vibrations send Thor reeling. Now he does grasp a fistful of Loki's wet hair – clutches it in his hand to bind him to Loki while he shuts his eyes and braces his bare heels against the pavement and blazing streaks of raw, carnal sensation sear through his cock.

After a bliss-blind punctuation in consciousness, Thor is vividly aware he's flooding _Loki's_ attentive mouth with each hot stream of cum surging up through his manhood. Each discharge leaves the empty delight of release in its wake. Loki is still humming, although he's interrupted each time he swallows, and his lips suck hard against Thor's passion-scorched skin.

When Thor is spent, his fingers uncurl from Loki's hair. He doubts not he left Loki's scalp sore, but Loki is far too self-pleased to be troubled.

Loki breathes heavily from his last exertions, which left no time for taking up air. Thor gazes on him in light-headed wonder, love effulgent in his breast. A warm smile stretches over his lips.

"A fine repast after I sat so long without dining," Loki muses, matching Thor's smile.

Thor's heart leaps to see it. He slips from the rough lip of the pool and kneels on the paving stones with his lover, taking him gently into his arms for worshipful, post-coital kisses.

Loki is his least guarded when he has wrecked Thor with passion. Thor is at his own most unguarded in the minutes after he comes. There is nothing Loki need possibly defend against.

Loki remains hard, trousers bulging with a weighty burden, but Thor has the sense to spend these rare minutes stealing a romantic interlude. Loki allows him to be free with both his mouth and his hands, to be brash in flirtation.

Thor's thumbs brush sentimental caresses across bare skin, or he straightens Loki's garments just-so; Thor grins between kisses, proud and confident; Thor is free with his strength in holding Loki close against him and he takes Loki's hand to so-suavely kiss his brother's knuckles.

Loki's embarrassment over Thor so overtly playing his lover – an artifact of the two thousand years he has been Thor's younger brother – is matched only by his pleasure with it. 

Thor is, in turn, slowly learning neither to feel guilty nor to fear doing Loki harm. In time these artifacts may be left behind as forgotten relics. For now it takes all of Thor's wits to guess when Loki will embrace happy overtures and when, instead, they will come to some awkward, agitated impasse. 

Thor often reflects on the first time he took Loki for himself. He remembers the muscles of Loki's shoulders; Loki clutching tightly to the rim of the bathtub; the pale mounds of Loki's ass as distorted through the water; the scent of Loki's wet hair.

He does not remember Loki's face. He did not see it.

In the heat of passion and with Loki making demands he had not realized his brother had positioned himself to guard his expression. Later Thor wondered what face Loki wore when he first drove inside him. Did Loki smile, or did he express a moment's hesitation – even a moment's regret?

Thor cannot know but wonders still, so he gives everything to flatter his little brother each chance he wins to do so. He gives everything to flatter him here in this hidden garden, today.

**(Then: Asgard)**

Loki feels like a little boy stealing down to the kitchens at night as he approaches his mother's chambers. She has her rooms and Odin his, king and queen sharing only their bedchamber. Loki has himself announced by a guard who returns shortly with his mother's invitation.

He thanks the guard and slips inside. Historical tapestries hang in Frigga's salon. She has much of her jewelry on display along with a dulcimer. Seated near the fire central to her room, she is brushing her hair with an elegantly crafted ivory comb that she sets aside as she rises to come embrace her son.

"Mother…" Loki hesitates to say more – to say anything at all. Instead, he stands in his mother's embrace, cleaving to her in return, unsure of himself and overcome with emotion.

Frigga holds him at arm's length, scrutinizing him with a mother's keen eye but still comporting herself with stately reserve.

"Is the Lady Freyja well?"

"She is," Loki says. He has eyes only for Frigga's careworn face.

"And Thor will be accompanying you to abide for a time in Vanaheimr?"

Loki holds his tongue, ashamed he was not the first to tell Frigga of his plans and anxious not to disappoint her further. He holds no illusions that she is anything less than disappointed in him, though with how many aspects of his conduct he does not know.

"Come and sit," Frigga commands. They return to her couch. Loki begins to relax knowing he won't soon be sent off. The stern lines of Frigga's regal face promise the reprimand soon produced: "It wounds me that the two of you chose to act like truant infants."

Loki's stomach turns, nausea rising to his throat. He looks sidelong upon his mother with desperation, his hands clutching his knees.

"Be there two children more truant in all the Nine Realms? We went into exile one after the other, and having been recovered mean to steal away."

Frigga watches him in silence. Loki sinks into deeper despair. He is granted one reprieve: Frigga looks away, retrieving her comb, and returns to stroking it through her long, blond hair. The domesticity of the scene allows Loki to relax again, hands unclenching. He cautiously sits back against the couch, attentive to the woman who raised him who he holds in such high esteem.

"Darling boys though you both were, I have never clung to nostalgia," Frigga says, her expression softening. Her eyes are the blue of storm-clouded seas. "I am pleased that you've both chosen to take responsibility for the havoc you wreaked and mean to move ahead as adult men, although it means I must let you go."

Loki can no longer maintain his gaze. He tastes bile at the back of his throat. He has dreaded for weeks what he must now ask.

"Do we sicken you?" Loki whispers, head hung in shame.

"No," Frigga says. Her voice is neither tempered with affection nor forgiveness. She speaks only truth. "It is as it must be. Now that it has come to pass I am already making my peace with it. For my part, I wish only that you were not fated to forge what you now share amidst such bitter pain."

Awash in emotion and emboldened by his mother's measured reasoning, Loki looks to her – wide-eyed – and blurts now the question he has since his origins were unveiled never dared ask:

"Have you ever wished it was _me_ who died and not Baldur, your true born son?"

Sadness envelops the queen, but so, too, compassion. She is at such peace with what Loki has feared since the revelation unfolded she does not halt at running the comb through her hair. She looks upon her son with as much adoration as when she spoke of the reasons he was denied knowledge of his heritage over her comatose husband's bed.

"My darling. I loved you before Laufey ever conceived you."

Loki takes a deep, steadying breath, breathing his mother's perfume – hints of verbena and elderflower. He thinks of his and Thor's youngest brother, a fair haired child with an ebullient smile who followed eagerly in the footsteps of his elder siblings. As a young man – for no older than a young man he ever grew – he was ever bold in battle with a joyful fearlessness that lifted hearts. 

Not the feckless brute Thor is in combat, Baldur had a certain cleverness about him that had, misguided as it now seems, convinced Loki he had a closer kinsman than the eldest brother that he often despaired to understand. Long nights they spent together, Baldur slipping into Loki's bedroom and climbing beneath the covers to listen to him spin tales half history and half fantasy while illusions spooled from Loki's imaginings into the air above them. Some nights, still, when Baldur was much too old but not too jaded for stories.

Then Surtr of Múspellsheimr made war, and brave Baldur died by fire.

Frigga speaks the thoughts that have shadowed her son's footsteps since that day:

"Loki, you have always watched over your brothers and friends and taken on responsibility for the least of their wounds, but Baldur was fated to die. Had I given you warning, he would have fallen still. That is the way of Fate."

The words offer scant succor.

Contemplative, Loki dares now to trespass upon topics left unremarked upon for a lifetime.

"What is it you see of the future, mother?"

Frigga leaves aside her comb to take her son's hand between her own. He thinks of his personal weakness at spá, the art of prophecy. It is a keenly individual weakness. He knows from his studies the Jötnar have produced great seers, particularly those Jötnar like Loki himself who the Æsir consider the more feminine in attribute.

"In the weft and warp of the Wyrd I see when lives will end and at whose hands. I see where in the future children will be born, like buds on a vine that in the fullness of time will unfurl," Frigga says. "So, then, I look upon you today and see who you shall slay and what children if any you shall sire. I know your end. Of all the living to be done in between I have only impressions." The queen bestows a quiet smile upon her son. "I knew even as a girl that you would be born and that you would bring me both joy and sorrow. I saw it in the threads the Norns have spun for you. In those sisters' tapestry, past, present and future are all one thing. My knowledge of Fate becomes no clearer with time, although we dwell now in the time in which our threads intersect."

Loki smarts with ire. 

"My heart rebels that we are but thralls of the Norns."

He knows the Norns are not women. Not as mortal beings would understand it. Their names are That Which Happened, That Which is Happening, and That Which Shall Be. All the same, neither are they without consciousness.

Frigga nods, caressing Loki's hand in consolation.

"In another age of the Nine Worlds, in my girlhood, I searched for hidden knowledge by which to thwart the Wyrd and learned all too well the pain of seeing that whatever actions I took ultimately brought about exactly what I had foreseen. Yet when I bore your little brother and first held him in my arms, I loved him as I knew I would love him and finally it all became too terrible. My heart, too, rebelled."

Loki frowns, not in the least consoled.

"Yet Baldur now dwells in Hel. Your search came to nothing."

Frigga hushes her voice, speaking so softly her words can barely be distinguished from the hissing and crackling of the fire.

"No, Loki. That search bore fruit – fruit I dared not pluck."

Loki swears that but for a moment his heart ceases beating. Next he is afraid: gripped by such a terror that he hardly dares breathe.

A simple truth becomes clear to him. He, too, whispers:

"You would not reveal such a thing to me unless you hate what you have foreseen for me more than you hated the death of my fair little brother."

Frigga is stoic, betraying nothing, and yet nothing more need be said. She speaks her secret, instead:

"The Tesseract is alive, yet in no way connected to the Wyrd. That's why, six hundred years ago, I urged your father to entrust it to human hands. I foresaw so much death upon that small planet. It resulted, ultimately, in the 'Avengers' your brother speaks so highly of. Now it is we who most need it."

Loki swallows around the fear that is a cold lump lodged in his throat. He rests his own hand atop the hand which covers his, the faintest nod marking his comprehension. A sadness he cannot name comes upon him.

"I hope never to disappoint you again."

His mother smiles, love alone in her ancient eyes.

"You and your brother are more precious to me than I can ever express."

No statement of faith, this.


	2. Chapter 2

**(Now: Midgard)**

Director Nick Fury is seated at his desk, arms folded across his chest, attention held by a single image on the huge screens surrounding him. On it a Greek woman is weeping. Breaking news scrolls across a red bar at the bottom of the screen as she gives her tearful testimony to the tragedy she is immersed in.

Fury taps the mute button on the touch console that is his desk as his second in command, Agent Maria Hill, strides into the office, manila folders beneath her arm, boots clicking on the steel floor. Composed but grim she passes the folders into Fury's hands.

"Eleven suspects?" Fury asks, passing this thumb over the folders' edges.

"Yes, sir."

"We're better than this – and that means we're on the wrong track, or there's a variable in play that _we've_ managed to overlook," Fury says as he starts in on the first dossier.

It contains photographs of a Caucasian woman, hair brown and cropped short. Her life's history is typed out over five pages before the dossier dives into a lay summary of her catalog of professional work.

Agent Hill stands at attention while Fury peruses the documents but is looking askance at silent footage of a packed Greek hospital where sick beds line the hallways. Masked doctors and nurses move from bed to bed, checking vital signs on patients with skin populated by thick, red pustules, changing out IV bags and delivering meals.

The second dossier is on an Indian doctor. The third on an Israeli virologist.

Fury looks up at Hill, then taps the mute button a second time, audio filling the office. A reporter is speaking in Greek, voice wrought with trepidation and urgency. An American translator speaks over him.

"We're nothing more than members of the viewing public," Fury says. "That is not a feeling I like."

"You're looking at the only eleven people planetside with the experience to weaponize the smallpox virus into anything like the variant we're seeing in Europe," Hill replies.

Fury latches on to her choice of words.

"Agent Hill, I'd promote you, but then I'd be out of a job. I'm working on the assumption that you've already sent inquiries to the Asgardians and the Shi'ar."

"Yes, sir. But it's an Agent Inigo Vásconez you'll be promoting. He flexed the rules that allow for emergency consultation with the Asgardians to extend to the Shi'ar and sailed us through the legal loopholes demanding state officials handle diplomatic contact with alien powers. It will be our scientists to their scientists. All his team needs from you is clearance to release SHIELD's data on the virus."

"Get a list of the documents I need to vet to my desk in the next five minutes," Fury orders. He knows Hill doesn't need five minutes because SHIELD's scientists have already compiled a grocery list below in the labs. He doesn't dismiss his second yet, but watches her face – watches her eyes – as he lays down his next order: "If this looks even remotely like something the US Army has cooked up I don't want obfuscation: I want a sample in our labs and the CDC's ASAP. Lean on them."

"Sir."

Fury takes the pressure off of Hill, gaze lapsing back to the folder.

"How long until the epidemic reaches maximum saturation?"

"They're saying seven to eight weeks. Traditional smallpox can incubate anywhere between a week and seventeen days, and this strain can come on faster. Or not. The unpredictability is bad news for forecasters."

Fury nods, continuing with scrutinizing his human suspects. His gut tells him least one of them is culpable of abetting Earth's latest foe. It may well be down to him to determine which.

"Let's make the best of the time we have," he says without looking up. "Dismissed."

Agent Hill leaves with a nod to her superior. Fury pauses at reading, reaching aside to tap his fingertips across the surface of his desk.

Three files distribute their contents to the monitors: Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner and Thor.

He asks himself if those are really the only three personnel with immunity to viral agents.

His people tell him Banner is already in the midst of the crisis. Fury can see him in his mind's eye: sleeves rolled up, clothing days unchanged, out of a biohazard suit because he started working before quarantine was established, but no better than offering solace to the dying in broken Greek.

Fury sits up and types out a message for Banner, a message to keep a sharp eye out for extraterrestrial interference. That message will find its way to him through SHIELD's network. The touch of a finger sends it racing across the globe.

Fury selects two more files: Tony Stark and Col. James Rhodes. Iron Man and War Machine can run on recycled air.

His gaze passes over Emil Blonsky's file. He presses the button to the desk of his secretary.

"I want the Abomination's latest psych eval, stat."

"Right away, sir," the familiar voice replies over the intercom.

The frown knitting Fury's brow deepens.

Fury's inbox lights up with the files he'll review and sign off on for Agent Vásconez.

Director Fury applies himself to his work.

**( Múspellsheimr)**

Múspellsheimr has been burning since the world's creation. Like Asgard, Vanaheimr and Jötunheimr it circles no sun, operating by laws old before the patterns of physics found their rhythm.

It pains Mephisto, Lord of the Great Deep and of Deceit, that upon his each visit to the realm of Múspell he is unclear on which form he would best clad himself in. All ambiguity displeases a devil of Mephisto's conceit.

The flame Jötnar, colossuses born from the inferno that burst forth from Ginnungagap at the beginning of time, are as ravenous as their icy brethren but the artifact of their progenitor, Múspell's sword, rests in their king's hand. They are uncorrupted elementals and have no need to clothe themselves. 

Mephisto appears from the astral by-ways a towering monster, face alike to a jawless bull's skull, its skin pulled back. His shoulders bristle with sharp crimson spines; both eye sockets and the open nose are gaping pits blazing with hellfire. He stands appropriately naked, a flaccid and ugly cock hanging between his thighs. 

As the devil walks the cavernous depths of the demons' lair, past chasms drooling magma and over craggy bridges of volcanic rock above the lava below, he watches the hideous Devourers about their work forging metals into both weapons of war and crucibles to carry the flames of their home world abroad. Mephisto feels he has captured the essential aesthetic of the place.

He comes now upon Surtr, the Devourers' king, upon his obsidian throne. The Jötunn has a chary-black crust of what could be called skin. His viscous innards of comingled, molten-hot earthy elements glow orange and red along the fracture lines of his joints. His treasured, massive, ever-blazing sword has been stabbed into the rock beside him.

Mephisto kneels in homage before this dark emperor. Flattery enamors Surtr – be it true or false. The devil sweeps a clawed hand to encompass these sulfurous, effusive environs seething with Jötnar. His voice rumbles through the air from the cavern of his fleshless head.

"I see the sons of Múspell are as industrious as ever at their forges, forging…"

Mephisto trails off, allowing Surtr supply the answer. Rock crumbles from Surtr's splitting cheeks as he smiles:

" **Doom.** "

The game is for a moment too ridiculous and Mephisto passes his hand across his brow as if he had eyes to hide.

"How could I forget? Doom, indeed. And how diligently they have toiled at that same work since time began" – how simple to confound fact and sarcasm as only a voice. "It seems to me that by this late era the sons of Múspell should have amassed quite the _surplus_ of doom."

Surtr laughs, but his voice broils with enmity.

"Be not petty, Mephisto. I do not stray to the Pit and your venal passions mock."

"Should you but make the journey I would woo you with their merits," the devil avows. His thoughts stray but briefly to chipping that rock with his claws and sucking magma from the demon's throat; he as soon leads his mind back to business. "–another time. I am here today on behalf of a friend, who, like you, lives incarnate and so doesn't enjoy my ability to stray where I please."

"I wonder what your 'friend' has agreed to pay you."

Mephisto rolls his head, ignoring the implicit question.

"My friend, you see, has business with hated Asgard."

Surtr spits at the name. The pyroclast from his lips begins to harden into stone upon the ground.

"We are all of one mind in seeking her demise. It is the position she occupies in the cosmos that causes my friend certain difficulties," Mephisto says. "As you well know, when the universe erupted from Ginnungagap what in lay terms you call Yggdrasil spread her branches across dimensions. My friend, the Titan Thanos, dwells within her tremendous crown. Travel from Midgard down through her bole is ever inconveniently trying for the incarnate."

"This Thanos wishes to pass through Múspellsheimr to achieve Asgard."

"You understand me exactly."

Surtr looks longingly to his blade, then back to the devil.

"And in return for his safe passage?"

Mephisto's spines flex and relax in his staged dramatic pause.

In it Surtr betrays his endless hunger, leaning in.

"He is at this moment sowing chaos on a planet near to Yggdrasil's bole: a world prized by the Æsir, called Earth," Mephisto says. "You will be free to unleash all the doom you please upon it and I think that Odin, who you so revile—" Surtr spits again. "—will descend from his lofty kingdom to do battle with Múspell's sons on open ground."

"Earth. Memory serves that Laufey made a gambit similar in nature of years late. Were you whispering your same sweet promises into Laufey's ear, devil?"

Mephisto cocks his expressionless, bony head.

"Not I."

"Tell Thanos I accept these terms. Leave me before I think too long on what gain you seek to prise from this discord."

"My due, esteemed Surtr. Only ever my due."

**(Then: Asgard)**

When the war ends and the Jötnar's sacred fortress is secured, Odin climbs one lofty spire, moved to look upon what he has laid to waste and remember forever what he wrought in this place.

He is stunned to hear a child's wail as he at last achieves the spire's summit.

It is a child that he finds, a failed creation but royal, for it lies here in sacrifice, asking the sky "Why?" in place of having been shattered beneath a hammer's blow.

It is flesh, like all the frost Jötnar now that Odin took possession physically and mystically of the Cask of Ancient winters. The child's watery, ice capped veins of are now but a thickening of the skin upon its body.

Odin feels in this moment deep affinity for his ancient foe.

Slight Laufey is for a Jötunn. The tragedy of the foundling's surroundings allow Odin a taste of the shame Laufey felt to bear him. Should Laufey's people have seen the child no doubt fear that the might of the royal bloodline had failed would have filled their icy cores.

Laufey knew it a portent, and Odin knows it, now, too, but Laufey and Odin read in it different meanings.

To Odin, the fleshy babe bears semblance to the first thaw of spring; to ice receding, its melting waters forming streams that run through the gullies in Jötunheimr's cracked bedrock. 

A stream now, but did not every mighty river start the same? While as ever more water poured in the stream's might grew, eroding the banks that strained to hold it?

Perhaps this tiny bawling Jötunn babe could in time, with nourishment, become so mighty a river that the Jötnar, water at heart, would fain other than be dragged into its currents to be be polished as rivers polish all unyielding things. From those waters could be brought smoothly, perfectly shaped stones like the scared lingam sought from the bed of the river religious Humans in earth's warmer climes call the Giver of Pleasure.

Odin's mind exults with such aspirations as he carries the swaddled babe home to Glaðsheimr.

When he sees again his wife, his beloved Frigga, after so long at warmaking, and her first words are: "At last!" She takes his tiny burden from him into her own arms. Odin's plan, which had only just seemed so clever – the machinations by which he sought to chart the Devourers' future – at once become petty in his sight as Frigga looks upon the babe with maternal adulation.

"Has he a name?" asks Frigga.

Odin thinks long.

"Loki, wildfire, we shall call him," says his father. "It is my heart's wish that an Æsir's sensibilities will catch in him like wildfire and like wildfire he shall burn away the brittle, tangled underbrush that has in these years of war overgrown so much of the fertile soil that once lay in my heart."

"Loki," Frigga echoes. "It suits this child. For see how bright his eyes and how ready he smiles."

"Have you no kiss for your husband, home from battle?" Odin chides, long kept waiting.

The smiling Frigga kisses him as he bids.

"There are and will be many wars," she says. "But as for sons we have for now only two. Do not wonder then, husband, if I prize welcoming our son into our home as more auspicious than your return from war."


	3. Chapter 3

**(Now: Vanaheimr)**

The bower of Thor's arms form for Loki a private refuge of perfect security. In this asylum Thor's breath warms the back of his neck and each breath of Loki's own is perfumed with the heady, masculine musk of Thor's body. His brother's arms bulge with hard muscles. The arm hanging over Loki's side, tucked beneath Loki's own, is a heavy but welcome reminder of Thor's peerless physical potency.

The oh-so-sweet ache of Loki's well-exercised buttocks is another. Little time it took to rouse Thor for a second bout of lovemaking, this time with Loki winning pleasure. 

Thor sleeps, but Loki drifts between sleeping and waking, ill at ease in his own skin. Fantasies provide meager distraction. A fear haunts him that all that is Áss about him will at any moment fall away and that Thor, awakening to the sudden plummet in temperature, will push him out of their bed and onto the floor in revulsion.

Loki's memory of his astral body is too vividly carnal. He runs his tongue across the back of his teeth – reassurance they are dentin and enamel and not jagged ice.

Each time uneasy rest takes him he is pulled from it by sudden terror tightening his chest. He consoles himself with Thor's literally inescapable adoration. It would take substantial effort to achieve freedom from his paramour's warm arms. 

Thor wins by default any argument of Loki's that he is not worth embracing by virtue of unconsciousness.

Despite sleep's escape from Loki, Thor forces Loki to accept and then, despite doubts, accept once again that he is desired; he is possessed; he is _loved_ —all this effortlessly in the silence of the night. The slumbering Thor's stalwart fidelity suffices, for now, to quiet the even the most virulent of Loki's fears. In the in-betweens Loki dwells on Thor, entertaining memories and forming aspirations.

Loki and Thor are different species of men, and not only in blood: Loki, enraptured with the womanly art of seiðr from a young age, is known to all as argr – unmanly. A stigma it is, but in other ways it leaves him free to act in ways a man among the Æsir should, by tradition, not.

Loki has ever evaluated his prospects accordingly, knowing male lovers will court him but expect his supplication, or that should they entreat him, as many have, to spend himself inside them it is not to be spoken of.

Thor is no different from so many other young Æsir, bound up in embodying valorous manhood. Loki has yet to enjoy such taboo intercourse as penetrating him, but there are moments when Thor pauses, a touch lingering in silent reverence on Loki's skin, and Thor's blue eyes betray where his thoughts are straying. 

Loki knows that it is only a matter of time and comfortably bides it, but Thor's warm, naked body pressed against him, the slow rise and fall of his sleeping brother's stone hard chest against his back and the faith implied by Thor's unconsciousness – faith even though, once, embroiled in the certainty Thor would slay him when his true heritage became known, Loki struck him dead – are fertile ground for fantasy.

A bird falls through the skylight feet from the bed, alighting upon the stone floor with a beating of wings to slow its descent. Loki is not taken by surprise, for birds abound in Sessrúmnir. He heard it on the wing before it entered. It is the identity of the huge bird whose blue-black feathers gleam in the starlight that startles Loki. He goes so tense in Thor's arms that his battle-tested brother awakens immediately.

"What is it?" Thor whispers at his back without moving.

"It is Muninn," Loki says, voice hushed to preserve the stillness of the night. "—and so, I think, news from Asgard."

Odin's celestial raven approaches the bed in the swaggering gait broken up by the arrhythmic hopping of his kind. He attains the bed in a vigorous leap, wings flapping to win him altitude.

By now Thor has relinquished Loki and is sitting behind him, weight borne on one arm and attention on Muninn. Loki has raised himself on his elbow, putting him eye to eye with the bird. Muninn turns his head to the side, one beady black eye on Loki.

"What says father?" Loki implores of him.

 _News of Earth,_ Muninn answers in the language of birds. _A plague has fallen upon humanity – one, it is feared, of no human origin._

Loki's foreknowledge of how Thor will receive the news galls him. He is sure this could have waited until morning.

"Such tidings are hardly worth waking us up for. We two are no physicians."

Loki wrinkles his nose at Muninn's unblinking eye, reading disapproval off the bird.

"Come forward with it, Loki," Thor commands, voice hard. Earth is, to him, so very precious.

Frowning, Loki rolls over enough to meet Thor's eyes in the night-shrouded room. Inconvenienced or not, he speaks with appropriate gravity.

"Some manner of plague sweeps Earth. Actors not of that planet are suspected."

Thor at once leaves their warm bed to go after his attire, Loki abandoned to stew on the cooling mattress. Better to be petty about the loss of Thor's naked company than to allow nameless, lurking apprehensions to creep into his already disquieted mind.

"Our thanks, Muninn." Loki's words ring inauthentic, but Muninn only ruffles his feathers and preens – preparations for a flight back to Asgard. "Have Heimdall prepared to open the Bifrost," Loki says. He then rises, too, having to hurry to catch up at dressing. Thor is as brisk about clothing himself as if an enemy horde awaited them. 

He hears Muninn take wing behind them. The raven will vanish in the sky of Vanaheimr to ride the astral winds to Glaðsheimr where Odin awaits. Such is Muninn and his twin Huginn's rare power.

Once armored, Thor hefts Mjölnir and waits only for Loki to finish clothing himself; Loki sees they will not be packing. They exit their borrowed bedchamber in stride. He studies the absolute stoicism of his well-loved brother. His perplexity with Thor's steel determination comingles with excitement in his loins. Thor burns his brightest when roused to make war. His thoughts just recently dwelling on sex, Loki fleetingly contemplates what measures he would take to tame the vigor of this proud warrior.

Then Loki's agile mind supplies the explanation for Thor's bellicoseness. He is distracted from further entertaining passionate ambitions. He narrows his eyes.

"Jane Foster. You mean to play knight and abscond with her to Asgard," Loki says. Thor is more than intelligent enough to understand no amount of action on his part will much impact the progression of a plague; it is the only rational conclusion.

"I must know if she has been afflicted. Whether she is or isn't, for having broken confidence with her I owe her a debt of honor. I cannot other than act to spare her the ravages of this disease."

Loki carefully weighs his words before speaking. Thor is, when roused, quick to misconstrue the most reasonable of overtures.

"—you will ask her to leave what family she has, her friends and her allies all behind to perish in this disaster? A devil's bargain your kindness becomes."

"Fairly spoken," Thor concedes reluctantly but maturely, to Loki's relief. "But I must leave the decision to the Lady Jane. My heart could not bear it if I withheld sanctuary from her."

A worm as poisonous as mercury coils within Loki's heart, leaking envy, but after his long private contemplation in their bed Loki presently enjoys a firm grasp on his reason. Thor's loyalty to Jane pales in comparison to Thor's loyalty to him.

In that light, Thor's present scowling fixation becomes charming. Thor's fidelity to a woman he has known but in brief promises Thor will expend greater efforts yet to remain at Loki's side. Loki has no fight to pick, but, mind quieted, now the duties owed Thor as brother and lover prick him to ward off future disaster.

"To dissuade you would unnecessarily tax my guile. I only ask that when you have found Jane you remember the reasons she may have to decline you and become not belligerent if refused," he says.

"It is not selfishness or my indebtedness alone that moves me, Loki. Jane's scientific endeavors have stoked the furnaces of progress that Asgard's great but timeless minds long ago allowed to grow cold. May I depend upon you to argue my suit?" He does Loki the courtesy of not turning his gaze upon him to add pressure to his request. He lets his eyes slide to some architectural detail of Sessrúmnir as they descend toward her gates, beyond which, upon Folkvang, lies the circle of runes by which the Bifrost is calibrated.

Loki is forced to think: First, that Thor, an adult at last, has begun making stabs at the practice of statecraft – albeit not unlike a foal wobbling on uncertain legs. It speaks of a burgeoning qualification for governing Asgard, an area in which Thor was formerly, in Loki's estimation, inconceivably incompetent. Second, that should he take on the charge Thor requests of him he may risk a heated quarrel with Thor if Jane, for any reason regretting her choice, is driven to despair.

Loki has never been particular about avoiding quarrels with Thor.

"Upon me you may depend, but here and now I divorce myself from the consequences of my actions," Loki says, not for a moment imagining that the burden of culpability, however thoroughly he lashes it to Thor, will be other than redistributed as Thor is wont.

The stern scowl that dominates Thor's features dissipates like a cloud passing from the face of the sun and Thor's sudden, warm-hearted smile coupled with the full brunt of Thor's attention catches Loki unguarded. The mercurial worm is driven from Loki's breast, unanticipated pride in himself swiftly replacing it. Loki savors Thor's flattery and returns Thor's smile as Thor claps a hand to his shoulder in long-familiar camaraderie.

"Prepare yourself to savor your recompense," Thor says in baritone.

Loki's gaze strays to the fine sheen of the scale mail fitted tight over biceps and triceps and sucks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, enjoying a splendid throb of arousal in his semi-hard cock.

His tarrying thoughts catch up to the present as Thor informs the sentry on duty of the news from Asgard and the news of their departure to be conveyed to the Lady Frejya.

Loki thinks to the flaxen haired goddess and wonders if she would bid him stay longer and learn more of seiðr. He is not willing to be parted from Thor and so only rehearses in his mind each charm he knows for breaking fetters and the runes to carve and color to chip away at Thanos' sway over his soul as they cross the grassy fields of Folkvang, the damp of morning dew seeping into their boots.

Loki halts as if struck, so frigid a lance of cold passing through his chest that he believes, for a preconscious instant, that he is Jötunn in body. He only lives that fear through the relief of recognizing he is not. He turns widened eyes on his concerned and alert brother whose hand rests upon Mjölnir's handle.

Loki cannot at first articulate what terror so riveted him in place. What sense he made of it is stolen by awe of the regal scion his brother is become in the pre-dawn light. Alike they are in height, but Thor's broad brow, wide nostrils and full, blonde beard that, though trim, grows lightly even at his throat creates of him, along with his flowing golden hair and rugged, powerful body, a paragon of Æsir manhood.

It is dishonorable to fear for Thor, but he asudden fears for him nonetheless. A mocking demon, their mother's warning and the sick glow of Thanos' violet gaze coagulate as an indescribable foreboding in Loki's breast. However dauntless and however powerful, Thor is not beyond the reach of death.

Thor cautiously awaits Loki's explanation. Loki takes two steps forward and pulls his brother to him, instead, fingers snarling in Thor's long hair. Thor surrenders into a crushing kiss that continues escalating until their lips are slippery and swollen. Dawn's light further stains the sky of Vanaheimr above them. Thor clutches loosely at Loki's sides, but serves as Loki's supplicant, entreating Loki to spend this sudden and violent passion upon him – Thor not knowing Loki's need but indulging him in full, feeling out its extent.

They part, both dizzy, their breathless lungs pulling down draughts of humid morning air. In his amazement and confusion Thor is without guard, waiting on Loki's word. A second, sweeter thrill shoots through Loki. At this moment he is ascendant, and his influence relies not on sex. Thor would give way like gold poured from some Dwarven crucible to be fashioned into an instrument of Loki's every desire should Loki but command him.

The fact of Loki's potency falls into place like the tumbler of a lock. This precious security Loki secrets away with the slightest shake of his head.

Thor so immediately regains his senses – now thinking hard to make sense of Loki's actions.

"…tell me now, my love, if you know more of this imminent danger than you've chosen to confide," Thor says.

"Impressions alone haunt me. Our past years have been cruel," Loki says. His thoughts quickly narrow upon one certainty. "Although it abides in Asgard, we should remain wary and be mindful of the Tesseract."

"Then we away to Midgard, and Sif and the Warriors Three keep close watch upon the Tesseract," Thor decides, at the same time offering Loki his hand.

Loki takes it, walking with him to the foot of the closed rainbow bridge above which, a world away, Heimdall doubtlessly awaits to transport them.

Loki recognizes the prize he carries with him from Vanaheimr to Asgard as the Bifrost claims them: Thor's trust.

Loki is not the man to measure how misguided Thor might be to again place that treasure in the hands of someone who has already so abused it.

Loki guards it much too jealously to closely consider that.

**(New Mexico)**

The reception hall which Odin's sons enter through a four paned glass door which pivots around a steel axis boasts a floor of polished stone interrupted by a large metal inset that announces in English letters 'The Foster Center for Collaborative Astrophysics.' Each material Thor sets eyes upon is bright in its newness.

Thor is aware that 'Collaborative' entails repeated openings of the Bifrost here in the desert for human and Asgardian academics to observe and, with the various arcane devices of both worlds, measure.

Pride for Jane's accomplishments swells in Thor's chest even though he is no longer a part of her life. It was on this empty ground near to Puente Antiguo where scant years ago he bided his exile. Now on this soil stands a monument to Jane's years of perseverance.

The SHIELD security detail that guards the Bifrost's now-permanent calibration circle informed Thor and Loki that the plague Asgard was warned of has not reached these environs, and so Thor is able to put that unfolding catastrophe out of his mind, if only until his business here is finished.

A dark skinned woman with a single red dot between her brows sits behind what appears to be a long, low marble table at the head of the reception hall. 

Thor filters through his thoughts: this is not a bar, although in both bars and the movie theater he visited with Jane he faced similar counters. He remembers, too, the reception hall of Jane's apartment building in Willowdale, Virginia and the uniformed woman behind it.

 _You'll want to talk to the receptionist,_ the security detail had told him.

"Good day to you, my lady. We were told you would be here to receive us," Thor says, closely watching the woman's reaction to gauge if he has acted with tact.

She smiles politely without cheer – a practiced smile Thor has seen worn before, upon the Black Widow's lips and upon others'. The way she carries her head tells Thor she possesses martial training.

Thor knows certain things about this facility from Heimdall: that Jane is within, and that SHIELD's distinctive eagle decorates more than one surface within its labyrinthine depths. Identifying the receptionist as another SHIELD agent puts the god at ease.

"Sir," the receptionist says to Thor, nodding her head in deference, then "Sir," again, now to Loki. Next: "I've been instructed to ask your majesties to wait until our ambassador can come to the front desk."

"Then we shall wait," Thor says, despite Loki's insulted, suffering sigh.

There are neither chairs nor benches in the reception hall, so Asgard's princes bide their time on their feet. Thor can hear Loki drumming his fingers across the leather of his coat but chooses not to feed into Loki's impatience, casting his gaze other places.

The walls are painted the color of hens' eggs; there is nothing precisely to look at. There is a black box with a small red light affixed to the wall beside the single steel door to the left of the receptionist's table – the kind of box which requires a human to pass a card across it for the door to open.

Thor hears the sharp footfalls of the approaching ambassador before the door opens to reveal her: a familiar face whose sleepy eyes are unfamiliarly painted in soft, shimmering pinks and whose similarly painted, pouty lips look glossy wet. Hair that once fell in waves has been tamed in the bun woven atop her head. In place of knit wool and denim she wears a sharply-tailored white-on-black suit with a hip-hugging skirt.

Thor knows immediately that he and Loki will not be well received. The smile that sweeps across the young woman's lips as she approaches them in shoes with tall, narrow heels boosting her closer to their height is all but identical to the smile of the receptionist.

It is not the smile of a friend.

Her orchestrated display of emotional distance swamps Thor's heart in turmoil; to receive such a cold welcome he must have injured Jane's heart indeed, and he is sickened with himself. Worse, he cannot fathom what wrought such a change over the young woman he only recently knew. He gauges Loki's reaction to this cool welcome with a sidelong glance, watching his brother's eyes travel languidly down the young woman's full-figured body and languidly up it again, after which Loki waits expectantly for her to provide an introduction, becoming the picture of boredom.

"Darcy Lewis. SHIELD. Cultural attaché to Dr. Foster and official tour guide to people from the stars," Darcy says, glancing between them. She extends a hand; their gazes follow it to the rotating entry way. "In this case I will be showing you to our attractive glass revolving door. As the main entrance to a Level 4 SHIELD facility it can withstand assault from small arms, heavy arms and explosive munitions." Loki's brows narrow sharply, but Darcy holds up her hand. "–I _know._ I know what you're going to say: You guys are Asgardian gods and our best glass doesn't stand up to your mid-grade glass. But the most awesome thing about _that_ door is it's the way you'll be checking out of the building. They're sending a car for you so you can go do the paperwork to legally enter the country."

Nauseous with heavy knowledge but eager to smooth over this perilous intersection of Darcy's fearlessness and Loki's wounded vanity, Thor humbles himself, pleading as one friend to another:

"Darcy…"

Except for blinking, Darcy is almost motionless in staged cheer, her hands on her hips, poise unsubtly defiant:

"It's okay, Thor. We're friends. I have no problem with you calling me 'Agent Lewis.'"

Thor sees the faintest cringe at the corners of Darcy's eyes and a tightening of her smile that speaks to him of emotions less thickly painted over than she would have him think. It reminds Thor that she is terribly young and that it is he who is responsible for this reforging of a once-carefree young woman into whatever she has now become.

Thor wishes for words to find him but instead stands guilt-wracked and dumb. He knows how to compliment, cajole, flatter and flirt and also how to command and demand, but no flattery would begin to repair the schism dividing them and he has no authority here. 

"Agent Lewis," Loki beseeches – Thor is more relieved than he has any right to be to hear in his brother's cloying tone that Loki has ferreted out all unspoken details. "I doubt not the integrity of either yourself or your door, and in the recent past Thor and I comported ourselves in a way injurious to the Lady Jane – but your very introduction betrays your position as attaché involves protecting … _Dr. Foster's_ interests," Loki continues. Darcy attends him; Loki can capture attention as surely as a serpent, and graces the young woman with a honeyed smile as he makes his bid: "Evacuation to a location far removed from human congress and so from any human-targeted malaise is what we have arrived to extend. Forgive neither our slights nor sins, but please recognize that no being – either mortal or immortal – is in the position to advance Dr. Foster's work should her life be cut short."

Darcy's face screws up with frustration, matching Loki's saccharine ploy with enough annoyance to repel all the cunning Loki's oozing. She rolls her eyes, professional demeanor falling away, the girl in her vibrant, the woman at bay. She reevaluates Loki as if seeing him for the first time and gestures at him from head to foot.

"Oh, _god_. You're like a Disney prince. The _accent._ The _hair._ " Groaning with thwarted lust, she turns her petulance on Thor: "I want one. They come in blonde, right? There was one in blonde. I want the blonde Disney prince that showed up outside Smith Motors."

Thor knows not what to say, but Loki is swift to capitalize on Darcy's new willingness to speak as an old friend:

"That can readily be arranged. I know not of 'Disney' but I _am_ a prince and that man's companion. I have the power to persuade Fandral to bestow his renowned chivalry upon you. Very little persuasion, if any, should it take, for it sounds as if you have already won his gaze. In whatever capacity you should wish to have him, he is yours."

Darcy pins Loki with a look rife with skepticism.

"—on a scale of one to sketch that is definitely sketch. Also? The terms of my employment are extremely strict about bribe accepting." She collects her composure, expression smoothing and back straightening. A look whose meaning Thor cannot discern is shared between Darcy and the receptionist, and then Darcy focuses her attention back on Loki. "Let's rewind this conversation to Thor wanting to carry Dr. Foster away to Asgard. That's an offer I don't have the authority to decline. If you'll follow me, your _majesties,_ I know just the place for you to relax from that long journey through the Bifrost while the higher-ups debate."

Darcy waves a card across the door and escorts them to a small room with two couches, three chairs and two glass-topped tables. What at first glance appears to be some strange art object but on second inspection, taking account of the triangular paper cups accompanying it, is obviously a dispenser of water stands nearby a lamp. The purpose of the lamp is not as clear. There is perfectly sufficient lighting set in the ceiling.

Thor offers to obtain water for Loki but Loki waves the offer off, taking his seat gingerly upon one of the couches. When Thor joins him there the wooden frame within it creaks beneath their combined weight. Thor listens closely. The frame sounds as if it has safely settled short of snapping.

In his first sojourn on Earth, in a mortal body, he had not developed an appreciation for the fragility of human furnishings. Upon his third trip to Earth, in those pleasant days spent in close company with Jane, he had come to realize he now weighed at least three times what might be expected for a mortal of similar size.

Loki, though they know now he is Jötunn, is of the same density.

With Darcy gone Thor can enjoy the gratitude he feels for Loki's deft maneuvering while he himself was speechless. He touches his fingertips to the back of Loki's hand, approving: "Brother, you astound me. I have not your way with words."

No longer playing politics, Loki is back to projecting his regal displeasure at being made to wait on anyone. His voice is as dry as the New Mexican desert.

"The good it does us will be swiftly counteracted by Nick Fury's denigrating attitude toward my way with words."

"You were his enemy, then, and treated him with scorn. Today you are united by common goals. He is a complicated man, but I have no doubt that in this matter he will deal with us fairly."

"A magazine…" Loki says to himself after a silent pause. He reaches for the first glossy-paged, staple-bound volume on offer upon the table before them. A voracious reader since childhood, he swiftly becomes engrossed in its contents, pausing only to remark: "Had I any notion what a magazine was I should have readily accepted his offer of literature during my confinement on the Helicarrier. I wonder if one would have been forthcoming."

Thor has been the subject of multiple magazine articles since the invasion of New York. Loki has been, as well. Thor, eager to spoil him, showed off what material he could acquire on his two trips to Earth: one to repel the shape shifting Skrulls and the other exclusively to court Jane. Aware that Thor finds novelty in them, Tony Stark has sent him others via the Asgardian dignitaries who regularly pass back and forth between worlds. 

Not every article on Loki has been derogatory. SHIELD interceded to not-dishonestly emphasize Loki's mania at the time of the invasion. Anyway, Loki seems as pleased by caustic, derogatory articles as those that paint him in shades of mystery.

Thor himself has yet to fully grasp the humans' enthusiasm for photographs, speculation and seemingly trivial information about him, but he has seen no reason to be stingy about indulging them. Loki has spoken wistfully of adventuring to Earth to himself enjoy such attentions, the only positive interest he has shown in the planet.

Thor inquires upon what Loki is reading but Loki murmurs "Nothing in particular…" Thor sees he has lost his brother to the unknown inner world Loki shares with paper and presses him no further.

Darcy reappears, attracting both brothers' attention.

"Director Fury wants to video conference. Up – up!" She impels them with beckoning gestures. "You probably know that he doesn't like waiting."

"It would be such an inconvenience to be kept waiting," Loki mutters, tossing his magazine back on the table.

Darcy shrugs her shoulders.

"I would apologize that we're in the middle of the end of the human race as we know it… Don't expect that apology any time soon."

Thor and Loki follow in her footsteps as they navigate the brightly lit corridors of the Foster Center, riding in a glass-walled elevator overlooking an interior courtyard to an upper floor. 

"May I inquire how you've fared since last we met?" Thor asks, his interest genuine.

"Gosh, how long has it been? Like, almost three years? I missed you the past couple of times you came through." Darcy thinks in silence a minute to work out a narrative order before explaining: "I was going to drop out of college to work with Jane, but SHIELD convinced me to wrap up my polisci degree. I knew right then they were scouting me, so I got the degree. They offered me this job, and I said yes. SHIELD training was no booty bootcamp."

Thor doesn't understand a word Darcy is saying, but smiles to know she has remained vivacious as both she and her planet have renegotiated their places in the galaxy. 

They come to another steel door. Darcy looks into a hole in the center of this door that shines red light into her eye. Next she passes her palm over another black box, its red light turning green as the door unlocks.

"I'm a bionic woman, now," Darcy brags. 

Thor chuckles, confessing: "I have much to learn of modern English."

Darcy turns her head back only slightly, but Thor glimpses a smile on her lips. Relief passes over him knowing that he is not beyond hope of reconciliation.

She leaves them in a room with a long table and many chairs. SHIELD's logo is emblazoned upon its center. A screen takes up one wall. Thor and Loki approach it, hearing the door close and lock behind them. Thor stands, waiting for Fury to appear. Loki surveys his prospects and chooses to lean upon the table, sitting against its edge.

One pale hand rests upon its reflective surface and his fingers drum. He is forever occupying his hands.

A memory rises unbidden of the two of them and their band of friends lying in wait, prepared to ambush a company of dark elves superior in number, and Loki toying with the knife in his hands. It twirled through his fingers in a blur of steel, but Loki played with no risk of cutting himself as adroit as he is with those small blades that deal death at the flick of his wrist.

Nick Fury appears on the screen. Thor reckons him irritated but not angered and counts this to their benefit.

"Director Fury," he says politely.

Loki says nothing, watching Fury.

"I hope you two have come up with some good answers," Fury says.

Thor doesn't follow, brow wincing, feeling acutely young in the face of the director almost entirely on account of his parentally narrowed single eye.

"Pardon?" Thor ventures.

"I can use you, and I can probably even use Loki, but later there may be a _talk_ about bringing somebody who tried to conquer the planet across the Bifrost unannounced," Fury says. "Now tell me in your own words why you touched down in New Mexico and not New York."

Thor has dwelt on no thought but seeing to Jane's safety, knowing that only once she is beyond harm's reach can he devote his full resources to rooting out Earth's present enemy. It seemed so natural a succession of events he is hard pressed to put words to it. Before Thor has begun to work out a way to explain his own mind, Loki attracts Fury's attention with a cant of his head and a broad gesture.

"It would appear as politically insensitive as it is to evacuate one woman from your United States amid so much death and chaos, yet Thor's honor binds him to offer Jane refuge at any expense. Call us not strangers to tact though the greater part of our tact be mine."

Fury nods acceptance at that, now dividing his attention between both brothers, but his words are for Thor:

"I like him right now. And if I like _Loki_ more than I like you, you can be damn sure you're at the bottom of a very long bad list. At least the lunatic in control of Latveria calling himself 'Doctor Doom' is on the same page I am about fighting this bug."

"Being our nation a monarchy and we its princes, Thor and I have the authority to offer asylum to other vital humans on the condition that Dr. Foster, should she so choose, be among them," Loki placates.

"Feed me that back as an actual offer."

Loki affects offense, but nonetheless produces what is asked of him:

"On the condition that Dr. Foster, should she so choose, be allowed to take asylum in Asgard for as long as Earth is ravaged by disease, Asgard will play host to whichever humans or metahumans SHIELD deems vital. Granting that once transported each must be housed apart from the others until it is certain none are not beset with illness, I ask that you be sparing in exercising your commission."

Fury nods.

"It's a done deal. I'm sending a quinjet your way to bring you both to the Helicarrier to rendezvous with the rest of the Avengers. Wrap up your business with Dr. Foster and let's make sure she has an Earth to come back to."

"None of your pets are particularly impressed that we're royalty," Loki muses darkly as the viewscreen flickers to black. "I don't recall consenting to avenge anything."

Thor reaches over to place a hand upon the small of Loki's back, hoping that his touch will ease, if not still, any plans for retribution brewing in his slighted younger brother's mind. The need to intercede with Loki effectively dampens the insult Thor himself feels after being taken to task for the natural exercise of his virtue.

"His people are dying and he knows not why. You articulated yourself the reasons he has to be short with us. Think instead upon how pleased I am with the way you have comported yourself and the solace you've granted me since our arrival."

"You'll have to invent the most compelling of pleasures to seduce your way back into my favor if you continue incurring debts at the present rate," Loki warns, yet he is amenable to Thor's knuckles brushing his cheek and pushes away from where he sits against the table to allow himself to be drawn with more light touches into a lingering kiss…

Only a moment before the door to the conference room opens.

Thor is startled back from this display of affection by Darcy's wide-eyed gaping.

"Oh. My. Fuck. What if I had brought Jane back with me? Maybe you don't understand that Jane was a complete train wreck after you and the Skrulls left."

"Jane was involved in a train wreck?" Thor asks immediately.

"Figure of speech," Darcy corrects.

"—I'm sorry, Darcy, I had no intention…" Thor apologizes, ashamed of himself and angered by the gloating way Loki grins at the girl from beside him.

The habitually lackadaisical Darcy has been provoked to fervor, her brow contorted to a scowl and her full lips stretched tense at their corners. Thor sees in her anger hues of the nascent warrior who dispatched him with a taser in the desert night and did not flee when the Destroyer attacked Puente Antiguo but took to the streets to apply herself to evacuating its citizens.

"I can't decide if you're the god of dumb jocks or a dumb jock and also a god," she's railing. Thor may not fully understand her, but the underlying message is unmistakable. Loki is the object of her next volley: "And _you_ keep your sassy britches faces to yourself. You're on _my_ planet and we run it like a meritocracy. So far it's 'Earth: one' and 'Loki: on probation.'"

Loki's matching inability to comprehend more than her gist confines him to furious silence throughout the time it takes for Darcy to quiet her own heated breathing. Now calm, her words measured, she remains firm as dwarven steel:

"I'm going to do the convincing to make sure Jane's on the next rainbow out of here. The ETA on your quinjet is twenty minutes, so take the elevator to the roof and do your homoerotic brother-touching up there."

On that, Darcy leaves them alone in the conference room. Thor is careful not to touch Loki as they search out the elevator not because of the embarrassment with which his own face burns or his anger at Loki's impudence with Darcy but because Loki seethes with rage, his eyes angry slits, his hands clenching and unclenching at his side and his stalking gait the walk of a predator on the hunt. Thor does not relish the prospect of taking a punch or of setting Loki off railing.

They share a disquieting wait upon the roof. Thor's thoughts return and return again not to Jane – who he must assume safe, for he has faith in Darcy – but to the palpable chill surrounding Loki that creeps beneath Thor's skin as they wait. How had he ever in the past mistaken it for some conjuration of his own mind and not a physical effect? He had grown so accustomed to growing cold in the presence of Loki's anger in their early childhood that in all the years of their adult life it passed beneath his notice.

The unpleasant thought comes to Thor that if a Jötunn Loki is then a Jötunn he must sometimes look. Thor tries and fails to imagine Loki's face taking on the cast of the Æsir's ancient foes.

That subject would remain beyond the bounds of inquiry were Loki in the best of moods. They uneventfully await the quinjet's arrival and board the craft together in sober silence.

**(Then: Willowdale, Virginia)**

Plastic snaps together as Jane closes her lipstick. She sets it beside the rest of her make-up on the bathroom counter. She only half-recognizes the face in the mirror. Eyeliner the color of unsweetened chocolate darkens her eyelids, she painted her curled lashes black and her accentuated irises are a startlingly intense mahogany. Her impulse-buy lipstick calls itself "sheer burgundy." She combs her fingers through her hair; it falls back into place as her fingers pass. She's afraid to touch the unfamiliar face, second thoughts provoking a panic in her chest.

She can remember the last time she wore a halter top: seven years ago. She was an undergraduate, then. Living in Culver's dormitories was the one time in Jane's life she was actively engaged with her peers, young women who begged her to stop studying and go down to the strip and enjoy the nightlife, who dressed her in their clothes, who taught her how to put on make-up and with whom she stayed up all night with in pajamas sharing twelve packs of malt drinks that tasted like fruit flavored hard candy. 

The top she chose is conservative black studded with silver and brass. The jeans and her boots came out of her closet. 'Cute jeans' Jane does; club tops Jane doesn't. She glances down at her painted nails, takes a deep breath and raises her voice to carry into the bedroom.

"You have to promise not to laugh."

"Why would I laugh?"

She can't suppress her smile at that tone of genuine mystification. She finds her courage in it. She didn't know she was brave until she met Thor.

"I _never_ dress up. I could look completely ridiculous," she says, but the fear is passing.

"I want to see you 'dressed up'. Whatever that may mean," Thor says. She can hear the smug in his voice. Her smile spreads wider and she turns to the bathroom door, open only a crack, lifting her chin and pushing the door aside for her big reveal, standing proud with a "Tada!" for flourish.

His eyes race across her made-up face, over her bare shoulders, across the studs of her shirt; they linger at her breasts and then waist – her ordinary wardrobe obscures both; they attend how her jeans cling to her thighs but mark the boots only in passing.

Jane's smile has crossed over into a giddy grin, and to Thor's credit he _doesn't_ laugh until he looks up to her face and then his grin matches hers and delighted laughter overcomes his tenuous reserve.

"You're laughing!" Jane accuses, laughing too. Secretly, she's relieved that the moodiness that's hung over him in quiet moments since his arrival on Earth has been, for right now, chased away.

"Because you told me not to," he says, still chuckling. He masters his mirth, leaning forward in earnest: "You are a magnificent woman in beautiful clothing. I am honored you have expended such effort to entice me, notwithstanding my previous enticement."

Jane is shy no longer. There's no mistaking the energy animating the god on her bed. It's a fire _she_ lit and she is prepared – thrilled, honored, _eager_ – to indulge it.

Half-formed fantasies spur her on to flirtation:

"Mmhmm, wait until you see what I have on under it."

"Why? What do you have on under it?"

Jane's watching her lover with a canny eye. He has eyes for nothing but her, hot-blooded and riveted to her words. Her temperature rises in an answering heat. In play, she chides him:

"You don't want me to ruin the surprise."

Thor thinks on these words and, gaze narrowing, slowly leans to the side as if a tilt in perspective would give him any better idea.

At no time in Jane's romantic history has anyone looked upon her with the unbridled intensity alight in Thor's desiring eyes.

Jane has heard of people's hearts soaring. She thinks that's what hers is doing now, her excitement so heady she forgets to breathe.

"Time to go," she asserts, taking hold of her wits.

Thor's brows rise in honest inquiry.

"Do I get to … _peek?_ "

"That'll depend on how hard you try," Jane says.

She's smiling and she can't stop. On the other hand, their long, naked lie-in yesterday which amounted to feasting on the entire menu of the local Chinese take-out in between a bewildering variety of orgasms has steeled Jane's resolve to take Thor to human venues and show off the novelties of the modern world. This morning, she gave him a tour of the Culver University campus where she's working to compile the New Mexico data and complete her doctorate. Tonight, the night life. "Out! I have plans. Plans that still involve clothes."

Thor's groan of protest only provokes god-herding motions on the part of Jane. He's twice her size and six times her weight. She thinks of bison and wind-blown prairie grass as she steers him through the living room and out the door, thwarting his two attempts to reverse course and land his fingertips on her.

In the hallway she loosely grasps his hand, breezing past him and 'pulling' him forward, casting a look and a grin over her shoulder. He's smiling, too, and consenting to be 'pulled'. They check that the elevator is empty before they step inside. Jane lives on the fourth floor and the elevator is guaranteed for scant pounds above their combined weight. She turns her thoughts to their destination as they head into the parking lot.

Even after she and her mother moved away for her mother to pursue a career to support them, Jane had one choice for college: Culver University, where, before his death, her father taught alongside Dr. Selvig. The college shares the town with the University of Willowdale and a small community college. Opportunities for drinks and music, tame in comparison to that surrounding famous 'party schools', still offer an array of bars and clubs for young lovers and for professors loosening their collars. Jane knows exactly the place.

"Where are we going?" Thor asks, curiously watching the town pass by outside the window of Jane's venerable sedan. He dwarfs most human men of his height; the car looks one size too small for him.

Jane's running tally of the things that draw her to Thor include his body, yes, and his sense of humor, definitely, but tied up with that is his eagerness for adventure. She'd bet he's never met uncertain circumstances that didn't lure him in.

"To a place so loud we can't hear each other talk. Then, after I've plied myself with enough drinks, we will dance the dance of my people."

"Like a þing," he decides.

"Yes. Like a thing. I _think_."

She feels a second rush stepping out of the parked sedan with the air cool against her bare arms. She has her ID and a debit card in her back pocket. It had been sentiment and a grasping need to preserve the reality of him in her mind that provoked her to retain Thor's counterfeit ID these two years, even with Donald's name attached to it. He has it in his own jeans' pocket and has been instructed to present it to waiters and bartenders if asked.

It's early evening and the club is playing the Top 40. 

At the bar, she's blinkered. She can't remember the name of a single mixed drink as she hands over her card to open a tab. (Correction: She can remember Redheaded Slut and Sex on the Beach. She can't remember what's in either of them; neither one of those she wants to explain to Thor.)

"I haven't been out in _forever_ ," she apologizes to the bar tender. "Can you make something fruity tasting happen?"

The bartender, younger than her with a shock of pink through her hair, winks and promises her it's no problem.

"A boilermaker," Thor orders confidently when the bartender looks his way.

"I know who _you_ went drinking with," Jane says while the bartender mixes drinks. 

"Yet I was mortal then, and more readily became intoxicated," Thor says thoughtfully. "Will they sell me one of these bottles?"

"Probably not. I think that's illegal." Jane squints at the bottles lining the back of the bar. "Rumple Minze, Wray & Nephew and Bacardi 151 shots for you. Or…" She waits for the memory to fall into place. "Right. Ask for a 352 Shot."

She's only ever been drinking at colleagues' houses since she got her Master's degree – falling easily into the role of one of the boys in a male dominated field. Their company recalls all the time she spent as a precocious child jubilantly researching alongside her father.

Some of 'the boys' stock their cabinets with high octane liquors. 

"A 352 shot," Thor parrots, committing it to memory, quick as ever on the uptake. He dazzles the bartender with a smile as she sets his boilermaker in front of him. Jane feels only pride. He's with her.

He's with _her_.

That's hard to believe. She watches him sidelong as he tips the whiskey shot into his beer and raises the mug to his lips, imbibing long and deep. The huge mug is half finished when he sets it back upon the bar and turns his gaze on her, in turn, watching her putting down her drink with the same eager interest.

"I have to remember I'm not trying to match you for shots," Jane says – happy she matched him half for half, anyway. Since moving back to Willowdale she has surmised, with her imagination filling in half the details, that her father and Erik roamed these same streets, drinking at these same establishments, or their precursors.

Her father, Dr. Hugh Foster, had been a happy drunk. He'd return home from the bars and sweep her up in his arms, twirling with her through the living room before her mother came up to kiss him.

Erik, and by extension his influence on her father, is her foothold into Thor's world. Of course, the influence of Asgard upon Scandinavia preceded all recorded history, buried in the distant past – before the 1200's, when Thor lived but no human now alive did.

Thor, ever alert to his surroundings, leans on the bar and pays close attention to the humans who slowly begin to fill it.

Thor makes his way through a series of shots, Jane through three drinks. Thor remains standing while Jane perches on a barstool, alternately watching the crowd and watching him, the mirror of Thor alternately watching the crowd and watching her. The rotating DJs gradually begin to mix house, dubstep and trip-hop in with the Top 40, marking the shift from the dance floor's early adopters to the alluring promise of meaningless rhythms that carry inebriated dancers into an altered state.

Jane and Thor have been inseparable since he arrived upon Earth – or, at least, since they breathlessly met at the bus station. Thor touched down at a secure, SHIELD approved location.

It's this protracted but comfortable silence and not their halting, laughing conversations or their rambunctious sexual escapades that inform Jane, subtly but profoundly, that she did not wait two years immersed in fantasy – in baseless hope. This, she sees now, can work. They are both explorers, whether of the stars or of material experiences.

The liquor has eased the rocky suddenness of her emotional highs into a long burn. She looks contemplatively to her lover.

"You make me feel like such a teenager."

Instantly his attention is rapt upon her and none else.

"A what?"

"An… adolescent?" she ventures. "Like I'm at least ten years younger. Like I'm new at flirting… sex, take your pick."

He considers and, when he understands, nods.

"Feeling like a teenager is a good thing."

"Yes," she says. "Definitely. Mostly I mean… I'm excited. _Unusually_ excited."

He reaches out, cupping her face in his palm, his eyes bright.

"I am pleased to unusually excite you."

Tears smart in her brown eyes. She doesn't cry; she doesn't feel like crying, and when she smiles the tearfulness abates. There is joy alone. They stay this way in silence, her hand hot against his cheek, until she finds her voice:

"I guess… I can't believe you're really here."

"How long is it we've waited?" he wonders, his hand falling away, expecting no answer. They consider each other, but neither speaks. The bartender passes by and Thor orders his seventh 352 shot. Jane isn't positive they're equally alcohol infused, but they're both relaxed, which is everything that matters.

Silence broken, and laughing off the remnants of modesty, Jane asks: "Do you want that in months or in days?" 

His smile is smug once again. She sees no fault in that.

"I came here under the assumption you would 'dance the dance of your people'," he says after, to the bartender's amazement, he's had two more shots and Jane has had her fourth drink.

Jane looks out across the dance floor. There are girls grinding with their partners, familiar and unfamiliar, moving in synchronization in ways she'll never match. Self-consciousness cuts through her confidence; _when_ exactly did she last do this? Thor has never danced on a 21st century dancefloor, but Jane has every reason to believe he assimilates cultural knowledge like a fine-tuned machine. She has never in their short yet protracted acquaintance needed to correct him twice after he's been exposed to some nuance of modern culture.

"I will _try_ to dance that dance," she announces. "—but if I look nothing like those girls up on their boyfriends then it's on you to make me not look like a total idiot."

"Your proposition is amenable," he vows, reaching out to touch her hip, hand clasping gently but firmly against it.

Jane realizes Thor doesn't care if she can dance like the girls on the dance floor are dancing, their hips separate entities from their thighs and the smalls of their backs. 

_We are explorers,_ her mind provides.

Next, they're on the human-populated dance floor. One song bleeds into the next, the beat pulsating and the video screens dominated by disorienting visual effects. She's grinding, hips and spine enslaved to the beat. The longer she dances and the higher she raises her arms. The more alcohol hitting her bloodstream the easier it becomes. Her body moves against Thor's rock hard physique. Her lover's hips follow hers, touches urging her on until her undulations are products of instinct and the heat of his skin and scent of his sweat her guiding light. Her hands glide over his body, fingertips drawing cloth into folds that slip away as her hands rake further. His larger hands cover the span of her skin in half the time: over her breasts, her belly, her hips, her buttocks. He pushes her shirt up her abdomen under his touch only to let it fall away, palms following her body's gyroscopic abandon.

Whether she looks behind her or up to him, he's smiling the same enraptured smile.

She casts her arms around his neck and kisses him while their bodies rock together. As she slides down his chest scrapes her teeth over his shirt, catching and biting his stiff nipple.

She hears him laughing.

"I can do this," Thor later protests as he, by far the more sober, attempts to master driving her sedan amidst her shrieks and full-body braces in the passenger seat. She babbles instructions through her fear; he executes them facilely.

He carries her back to her apartment from the parking lot like a prince or as if they're newlyweds. She's saying "Oh my _god_ " and " _No_ " but he punches the elevator buttons and relinquishes his hold on her only when he allows her to fall upon the bed.

There's no top and no bottom and no world but Thor as they toss aside their day clothes as spare baggage. Now he sees it: the lingerie Jane, emboldened by his attraction, bought only for him – nothing but ornate black lace and sheer black hose against her skin. He undresses her with the slow action of his teeth. 

By morning they lie unencumbered by any concern but what their mouths and tongues and fingertips can draw to their attention. Later, Jane will have to ask why in the interims between his enthusiastic participation in their new love life Thor has seemed so quiet and sad. There's nothing sad about Thor tonight and nothing witheld. They have surrendered to pleasure. Jane finds him hard whenever she wants him hard.

Ecstasy follows.


	4. Chapter 4

**(Now: Greece)**

Bruce Banner takes off his glasses to polish the lenses on his shirt tail.

He could crush under his might every one of these sweating, blistering patients who moan and wail, mutter feverishly to themselves or stare blankly in silent resignation in the beds surrounding him. He would love to put his fist through the pox-pimpled nurse, unsure on her feet, that knocks into him as she navigates the crowded hallway; could… Won't.

He slips his glasses back on. Most of the material on the patients' charts is unintelligible to him, but he can sound out the most important parts in his mind: their names.

He doesn't need to read anything to lend the pressured hospital staff his help. There is no course of treatment; only triage, sanitation and hydration. Health officials in space suits patrol the corridor, taking blood and tissue samples and counting patients.

The hospital and surrounding town are under quarantine, but it came too late to preserve the native medical staff. A sickeningly sweet scent pervades the hospital's recycled air. It is the stench not of rot but of raging storms of intracellular messengers – the chemical screams of overtaxed immune systems.

Bruce has provided medical aid in the favelas of Brazil, on the backstreets of India and among the impoverished of Somalia, but the hospital he's in today is a node in the network of one of the world's best medical systems. 

He's seen more death here in the past week than in any overexploited, underserved nation.

The fever-weak men and women covered in oozing rashes that surround him are the lucky ones. 

The disease starts the same: a high temperature, malaise, an aching body, a nauseous stomach forcefully expelling its contents. Next, for some, the lesions appear. Then, blossoming across the body from the inflamed skin, rise the disease's famous pox. Over days they fill with sloughed skin, with fluid, with pus and with their viral load, until, tortured skin so taut it easily tears, they rupture, weeping disease. 

For far too many others the lesions never appear.

No pustules bloom. Instead, the skin begins to darken like olives purpling in the sun on the Grecian hillsides. Purple turns to black. The veins and arteries of these victims no longer carry blood to its destinations. Their blood spreads unchanneled beneath their skin. Every beat of their fatigued hearts floats them closer to an inevitable death.

That red liquid escapes their body at every orifice: the ears, the nose, the mouth, the vagina, meatus and the anus. Oxygen starved skin perishes. It sloughs off in sheets. Life ends – whether abruptly or torturously. An ugly corpse that looks not bruised but burned to char is left behind.

The Greeks cremate these dead. Bruce is ashamed it is at this task that he outshines his peers. He lets the rage wash over him while he feeds the flames both fuel and wrecked, pathetic black bodies. His disgust bleeds into hatred as each pitiful husk turns to ash. His eyes burn fluorescent green as he toils for hours alone at this grisly task.

"Η αμερικανική τέρας" the Greeks whisper to each other. _The American monster_ , Bruce has learned. Despite knowing who and what he is, they do not send him away. 

These are not circumstances under which he yearns for acceptance and familiarity – even though there is always a towel, a bottle of water, a clap on the shoulder and a meal ready for him when he most needs each.

He knows how he'll be decontaminated when he leaves here. He spends time each day reconciling himself with not destroying his surroundings when he faces the inevitable naked Lysol shower.

"Banner!" a nurse calls from the end of the crowded hallway where Bruce, at present, is at the more pleasant work of refreshing IV bags and murmuring assurances to these lucky patients who he knows have every chance of surviving. "Bruce Banner!" the nurse repeats above the din.

He makes his way through the hall, begging excuses in Greek. He has picked up an ample vocabulary of those, immersed as he is in a sea of distressed Greeks.

"That's me," he says to the nurse when he finally reaches him, clapping his own chest. The man nods, responding in English with: "Follow me."

"There is a woman below, asking for you," the nurse explains, his accent thick but words intelligible, his skin covered in the dry scabs of the recovering. "She says there is a message."

The set of Bruce's brow deepens and he cards his hands through his greying curls. He knows what _below_ means. The basements are crowded with men and women beset with black pox and waiting to die. The inconceivably deadly plague is burning through the population at such a pitch that there are no supplies with which to euthanize them.

It has been explained to each of the dying patients that there has never been a saving salve for black pox – not even under the best conditions. When they've grasped that sliver of understanding they are abandoned, left alone except for the company of each other and whatever portable electronics they came in with – if those can even attain a signal.

'Below' is a sad place where the single solace is the repeal in recent years of the longstanding ban aimed at gambling outlawing the use of electronic games in Greece, letting the carriers of portables entertain themselves. The batteries dying as swiftly as their owners themselves.

The nurse brings Bruce to a woman with ruined black skin loosely clutching her smartphone to her chest. The woman rebukes the nurse with _Away, away!_ with sudden violence once Bruce is at her side. He leaves for the floors above.

"Here," she says in flawless English, extending the phone to Bruce with a trembling hand. "Everything encrypted…" she mutters, gaze listing toward the wall; her eyes snap back to the physicist-turned-medic with uncanny sharpness. "SHIELD thinks it's aliens who've brought this on us. There are human suspects. Pictures… You'll find them there. But I look around us… SHIELD is right. Smallpox has never looked like this. And the nurse… That nurse, Banner..."

The woman's eyes roll in their sockets. She heaves for air. Her back arches against the cot she lies on. Bruce wonders who she is – who she _was_ – while he listens to her gurgle her own blood. Was she from the Greek National Intelligence Service? SHIELD? Was she a US operative stationed overseas? 

None of that matters. Bruce just wants to think about _anything_ but the wretched sounds the disease is wringing out of her.

Her body slumps. Her eyelids are spasming. Exhaustion, if not death, is dragging her toward unconsciousness.

"That nurse," the fatigued woman whispers. "He has so much energy, Banner."

The woman doesn't die on the spot. Bruce has watched so many films and TV episodes for a taste of home in his exile from his motherland that he actually expects her to. She only drifts off into a daze.

"Thank you," he says, earnestly and loud enough to hope she hears it, her phone in his hand. He stands there in the basement's fluorescent light and reads the message she was sent. He memorizes the eleven faces in the file attached. He only recognizes one of them and that one distantly – some fragmented memory from the world travels of his recent past.

He stands there in the basement, shuts his eyes and thinks. He has poured every ounce of his illimitable energy into this crisis, oblivious to any good in the world around him.

There have been survivors.

What about the survivors?

What happens when the pustules turn to scabs and the scabs begin to heal?

 _They volunteer. We train them. They become nurses in place of the nurses who've died,_ his brain supplies.

It's not that they develop a sudden knowledge or love of medicine. That's not what happens, and not all of them put on scrubs. Simply: Many among the meager population that recovers look at the catastrophe around them and decide the only humane option is to find work that needs doing.

Bruce thinks hard about the nurse who brought him below. He knows that last week that man was a patient broken out in sore, red wounds – the kind of patient that fully recovered. The man grew strong and he pulled on scrubs. He began helping until he became practiced at helping. Now he's an expert at documenting vital stats and inserting IVs.

Bruce wets his lips and heads upstairs, fortified by fresh determination. He doesn't find the nurse that took him below, but there's another recoveree he recognizes and he takes her by the shoulder and asks her in rough Greek, _When did you last sleep?_

The question surprises her. She doesn't know.

He asks two more survivors.

One says "Three days ago," and the other "Thursday." Thursday was last week.

 _Just what kind of smallpox has an eighty percent mortality rate and leaves the survivors better off than they started?_ Bruce asks himself while the population of the hospital bustles through its routines around him. _Smallpox doesn't._

It's worth reporting. 

He checks the charge on the dying agent's cellphone and then thumbs in a reply to her contact:

_Bruce Banner: There is an incredible incidence rate of black pox here, but the virus is delivering something into these people's DNA. Survivors healthier than human. Find out what survivors' cells are transcribing._

Bruce is no geneticist, but in his time poring over medical and biology textbooks he's picked up the basics. 

It's no trouble for the same strip of DNA to produce multiple products depending on which pieces of code are retained after splicing. That's the miracle that has allowed the unusually short human genetic code to produce the diverse array of components that make up a human body.

A virus is only a lecherous piece of code that co-opts cells for its own purposes.

A virus's purposes are usually the production of other viruses.

Bruce can't even start to calculate what's different between the classic virus called _Variola major_ with its already unusually lengthy code and what he's facing here in front of him, let alone what else this malicious intruder could be scribbling into the margins of its victims' DNA.

For Bruce, it doesn't matter. Until he has an enemy in his sights fit for the Hulk to tackle he can only provide succor to the living and burn the dead here in Greece.

**(The Helicarrier)**

The conference table on the bridge is populated by men, women and gods familiar with SHIELD and some who have come aboard for the first time.

Tony Stark slouches in his chair, hands folded on his stomach, fingers interlaced. Next to him sits Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries, a Stark tablet standing upright in its dock in front of her. To her left sits Thor, Mjölnir lain upon the table before him. Beside Thor, Loki, a portrait of detachment. Steve Rodgers double-takes and then took his seat next to the Asgardian, tense but working through it. Next to Steve is Colonel James Rhodes, sitting across from Tony.

Those two old friends speak in microexpressions Nick Fury, trained in long distance surveillance and familiar with both men, can read as clearly as spoken words. A grim look on Rhodes' face: _This looks bad._ Tony's eyebrows twisting above his own minute pained expression: _Yeah, I'll say_. Rhodes's eyebrows raised, hope on his face: _Any good news from the private sector?_ A frown from Tony and a quizzical look of his own: _No. How about from the brass? _A shake of Rhodes's head: _Nothing._ Last, a frustration-tinged sigh from Tony saying _Well, shit.___

__Fury sits at the head of the table, watching his paramilitary operatives-cum-consultants with hands-on extra-human crisis expertise until he's taken the temperature of each of their moods. Pepper Potts finishes interfacing with her tablet and turns to Fury. Fury files her knack for taking initiative in the back of his mind._ _

__"Stark Industries is prepared to commit its manufacturing capacity to laboratory resources, pharmaceutical manufacturing, treatment distribution and the rapid assembly of new biocontainment equipment. We have a twelve man team and JARVIS dedicated to intaking and prioritizing requests from the public and private sectors."_ _

__"I want you to run me through all of it when the meeting adjourns," Fury says to her; to the rest: "I wouldn’t have called you here if I didn’t have news. Bruce Banner says this virus is aggressively rewriting the DNA of the slim percentage of people who survive it. Observational evidence says they’re healthier than they’ve ever been. We're airlifting survivors to a Level 4 biocontainment facility for medical analysis as we speak."_ _

__Quiet sits over the group as each human and god turns over that fact in their own mind._ _

__"Okay. Who even has the technology to manipulate DNA like that?" Tony thinks aloud. "Last I checked most human genes are, functionally speaking, still a mystery – let alone transgenomic interactions. Primarily because I haven't trained as a biologist yet."_ _

__"Thanos has the technology," Loki says. "I am confident he is long familiar with every aspect of what I believe your kind call the biological sciences. I know that he tailored the Chitauri forces at the request of the Chitauri leadership."_ _

__"I think it's time we debriefed you," Steve says with a frown. His expression softens as Loki fixes him with a wary glare. "It, uh, means we document everything you know about Thanos."_ _

__"You'll love being debriefed. You love giving speeches possibly even more than I love giving speeches," Tony says. Loki remains outwardly suspicious but voices no complaint. "Also," Tony continues. "Are Natasha and Clint coming to this party?"_ _

__"They're out on assignment," Fury says._ _

__Col. Rhodes leans forward in his chair, commanding the attention of the table._ _

__"The armed forces haven't received or intercepted any communications from known terrorist organizations taking credit for this. Not even our worst enemies want a smallpox epidemic."_ _

__"Assuming Thanos heated up a strain of smallpox, where did he get the virus from in the first place?" Potts asks. "I had heard stocks had been eliminated except for the samples at the CDC and in Russia."_ _

__Fury leans back, folding his arms over his chest, distributing his attention over his consultants._ _

"That's what the world likes to believe. The Russians had been bioengineering and weaponizing smallpox for decades before the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. A lot of weapons grade _Variola_ disappeared. We think North Korea could have it – if they do then China, probably. Iran and Saudi Arabia may have stores. The US biowarfare program was officially terminated in 1970, but that might not mean anything. I hope I’d know if Canada, England and Israel have stockpiles but interdepartmental communication can be… _incomplete_ in these circumstances. I've also been informed an individual virologist or volunteer could have preserved their own sample of the virus during the global eradication effort last century." 

__"It sounds a nigh insurmountable task to root out the origin of this pestilence," Thor surmises._ _

__"Finding out exactly where this strain came from could give us some idea of what the endgame is here. Obviously if this disease is handing out upgrades there’s an endgame," Tony says._ _

__"The ultimate endgame can be naught else but the Tesseract," Thor says._ _

__"Maybe the modifications to the survivors are supposed to convert them into a new army," Rhodes says._ _

__Steve squares his jaw._ _

__"Thanos got here from a long way off, right? So far away that we can assume he's more of a stranger to Earth than Thor or Loki. How did he know what smallpox was?"_ _

__"He’s very, very old, isn’t he?" Pepper asks, glancing toward Loki. "Maybe he visited Earth in the past."_ _

__"No. I think Steve's onto something," Tony says. "Thanos didn't _need_ the smallpox virus. From what Loki says it sounds like he could write his own virus from scratch. Why smallpox?"_ _

__"Smallpox is terrifying. Immediately. Worldwide," Rhodes says. "I’ll accept that our most likely assailant is the alien SHIELD knew was headed toward Earth who has the exact skillset to execute this attack, but even if he'd seen smallpox in the past he wouldn't have any idea of the scale of panic using that specific virus would cause."_ _

__"Right. It’s got the smell of a human all over it," Tony says._ _

__"I believe it's a colloquialism, Thor," Loki murmurs to his perplexed brother, lightly and briefly touching Thor’s arm._ _

__Fury knows every millimeter of meaning in that touch – he never cuts audio after handing out a dressing down. The knowledge is in his go-to toolbox for lighting a fire under the reluctant or belligerent. Loki is being neither, so he questions him straightforwardly:_ _

__"Loki, the weapon you used to compromise Barton and Selvig was connected to the Tesseract, yes? After agent Romanov used it on the Tesseract it became inactive. It's in our vaults and it's still inactive. If I understand Thor right, when I entrusted the Tesseract to Asgard Thanos could no longer gain access to it. What are our chances we can rule out mind control?"_ _

__Loki’s already excellent posture refines itself as all eyes turn to him._ _

__"It cannot be completely ruled out. Thanos is capable of telepathic domination. Nevertheless, 'mind control', as you so put it, seems to me unlikely. Thanos sculpted my mind by virtue of the staff's intrusive power. I believe, from my time with him, that his innate psychic abilities are primarily defensive. Intuition tells me he's relying on conventional techniques of recruitment: false promises, bribery, the awe his very presence inspires…"_ _

__His sentence ends in a vague but wide gesture, summing up the unplumbed variety of incentives he has not enumerated._ _

__Steve freezes, gaze fixed in space, struck by a revelation._ _

__"Bruce said it’s making the survivors healthier. It’s killing eighty percent of the population and leaving the rest new and improved." He looks around the table for signs of disagreement, then presses on. "I know a man who would make that a goal. Johann Schmidt – the Red Skull. His whole cult: Hydra. They held his augmentation up like he was a god. I don't know how many of you have studied the war, but a lot of the Nazi rhetoric was stuck on a stronger kind of human inheriting the earth. Schmidt took that to the extreme. He wanted to kill off most of humanity and have the rest of us fight it out so only the best of the best survived."_ _

__Tony clucks his tongue, then offers up:_ _

__"Correct me if I’m off base, because Hydra was like my scary bedtime story: There was a kind of snake and tentacle theme with those guys. And one of the qualifications for membership was to be willing to kill yourself instead of compromise your cult-buddies. But, if I was a Hydra soldier on the losing end I’d rather slither off than suicide. I bet a bunch of them had hidey-holes to go to – or they dove into some poor chipmunk’s hole, murdered it and moved in."_ _

__Fury brings to mind his back-catalog of threat assessments he’s reviewed throughout his career and reviewed again when promoted to director._ _

__"That would be a colorful but accurate assessment of what the armed forces and Scientific Strategic Reserve put to paper after the war. It’s plausible," he says to Steve. "Plausible enough to move on. American intelligence kept eyes on some of them, but not all of them. That was one of the reasons the SSR reorganized as SHIELD." He makes up his mind. "Captain, take Loki down for debriefing. Ms. Potts, follow me to my office. I’ll still take that rundown after I update our objectives. The rest of you can go. Col. Rhodes, the brass wants you with the Avengers until I hear otherwise. Concentrated firepower. All of you be ready to deploy on my say so."_ _

__Fury is on his feet and the first to leave. He may not have people stand at attention and salute until he exits, but his presence leaves a wake wherever he walks. He hears chairs rolling and people moving at his back only when the doors to his office slide open._ _

____

\----

"Shots? Anybody wanna do shots? I packed vodka, and I’m not stingy," Tony offers his remaining company: Rhodey and Thor. "That goes for all of you," he calls out to the agents busy coordinating SHILED’s world intelligence network and its many current partners on their monitors.

"I think I’m gonna have to requisition that vodka, Tony," Rhodey warns. Tony becomes petulant.

"We are outside your jurisdiction. This is not your jurisdiction. I have a constitutional right to deny the US Army my vodka."

Tony catches the troubled look haunting Thor's expression out of the corner of his eye and ratchets up the Stark charm with a blinding grin and saucy wink.

"How about you, stud?" He makes a cheeky display of checking himself, widening eyes saying ‘Oops’ and smile shifting gears to a self-confident smirk. "Despite what you know about me that is not a come on. I’m in a committed relationship with Pepper and also Rhodey."

"—I want to argue that, but I can’t," Rhodey concedes.

Thor returns to the moment, thinking back to what Tony just said.

"Large quantities of your liquors have an insubstantial impact on my sobriety," Thor apologizes.

"Take me to Asgard, space man," Tony laments.

Rhodey has relaxed his Air Force straight posture out of Fury's sight. He's looking at the shine on the table and, like Thor, thinking too hard on this.

"It’s weird," Rhodey says. He realizes that could be misconstrued and looks up at the Áss at the table. "Not you, Thor. Not exactly. It's just I’ve lived decades with no aliens anywhere but the heads of conspiracy nuts. I thought we were alien free; the Air Force ruled out aliens in the sixties. Now all of a sudden they’re everywhere: invading us over and over again, working with us…" He breaks into a smile. "Also, I can fly. Technically I'm used to that, but being in a prosthetic is completely different from being in the seat of an F-22 or an F-35."

"My personal strategy is to maintain a sense of childlike wonder," Tony says.

Rhodey’s brows inch up.

"Yeah? But you stopped aging at fourteen."

"I was in college at fourteen."

"And lost a lot of valuable teenage life experience."

Tony keeps his mouth shut, proudly refusing to concede the point.

"Asgard does not see itself as alien to Earth," Thor points out. "Your ancestors have dwelt on this planet for millions of your years, and Earth has ever – consequentially for both our species – lain upon the path of Bifrost into the vast galaxies of Midgard."

"Confirming we are the actual center of an infinite flat universe," Tony decides.

Thoughts on the past conversation are gradually taking over more and more of Tony's conscious thoughts.

Startling Thor and Rhodey, Tony claps his hands together, jumping to his feet. "Come on person and primordially augmented god. We’re hitting the mess hall."

He keeps up the clapping until he has the other two up out of their chairs.

"Move it, people, we're on the clock."

\----

Steve is grateful for having been given a work detail. He didn't like everything he just heard at the table, including what came out of his own mouth. It's easier to do a job than chew on that. And, it's been hard to tear himself away from the news broadcasts running footage from Greece twenty-four hours a day: airports closed, borders closed and quarantine established municipality by municipality.

He grew up in a world where the threat of smallpox was real and constant. He enlisted in the army at a time when, with soldiers and displaced civilians traveling the globe, the disease made a terrifying rally, killing at least as many people as the war itself.

It's hard for Steve to relate to the shock everyone else is going through. He's terrified for his planet, his species and his country, but for him _Variola_ is mankind's ever-looming enemy. He has yet to connect with the idea that its eradication during his decades-long sleep is now considered both humankind's greatest medical success and, by most people, ancient history. 

Steve doesn't blame the SHIELD personnel passing Loki in the Helicarrier's brightly lit, spartan hallway for their apprehension at the sight of the Asgardian. More than one of them personally remembers his works sending the ship plummeting from altitude. More than one of them lost friends and brothers and sisters in arms in the assault by the recovery team led by the possessed Clint Barton.

Steve plans on waiting out the debriefing whether or not he participates in it. SHIELD employees may adopt a policy of professional stoicism, but Steve's willing to bet they'll feel more comfortable with the massively powerful alien with a 'metahuman' around.

"I have no actual desire to recount my past experiences to a belligerent human or humans," Loki informs Steve soon after they've exited the bridge. He is taller than the soldier, allowing him to look down upon him. There is only a difference of inches but Loki plays it for the maximum effect. It doesn't help the tension that Steve's particular about men with Loki's attitude.

"The techniques we use are specifically for alleviating stress after a crisis. It's not the same as an interrogation," Steve reassures him, anyway.

Loki scoffs at the claim.

"It would prove a pleasant change, if true. Your ilk are as disrespectful as they are young."

Steve is doing his best to treat Loki as a potential ally, or at least a resource vital to international security, but he thinks that's taking it a step too far.

"How can you blame them?"

Loki's confusion at the question might just be genuine.

"I hope this isn't the way you treat the princes of other allies. Even your so-called 'ambassador' offered me no shred of respect," he says.

Steve decides to reframe the conversation as a conversation of a stranger who, however well spoken, may be more foreign to the modern Western world than he sounds.

Steve has been that person, and sometimes he still is.

"SHIELD isn't a political organization. It's an intelligence agency that tracks and responds to people using new or alien technologies. You should doublecheck with a SHIELD agent, but I'm pretty sure SHIELD ambassadors are the handlers for visiting scientists, not princes."

Steve's brow knits as he studies Loki's only further darkened, unpleasant expression.

"Loki," he says, trying to think of him as Thor's younger brother and by extension someone he has a duty to go out of his way for even if Loki is resisting every tack he takes. Maybe the direct approach will stick: "You do know you're not a god?"

The wild, widened eyes Loki turns to him would make Steve think he'd just insulted the man's mother instead of pointed out an officially documented fact. Steve holds his hands up, knowing from their history that they share the understanding that the gesture begs peace.

"Okay, so. Apparently that's news," he apologizes awkwardly. He stops a second, turning to face the Asgardian, at least to make sure Loki has it clear. "You're right that you and Thor are _much_ older than any of us, and nobody's denying you pack a wallop. I just… thought you should know, before we get in there, that that's the word on it."

He may not be a god, but Steve would be willing to believe the look in Loki's eyes might actually be able to kill someone.

"What exactly do you consider us now?"

Steve lowers his hands without making any fast moves, still apologetic.

"Princes of an extraterrestrial monarchy, and a separate biological species."

"Unacceptable," Loki snaps, taking off in their previous direction. Steve takes two quick steps to catch up.

Steve's sure that Loki doesn't understand the modern connotations of 'extraterrestrial' and 'biological species' because Steve, himself, doesn't completely understand the modern connotations of those words, although he's beginning to catch up. Stark unexpectedly 'fedexed' him a list of movies that, per the instructions on the sheet, he was required to watch.

Steve has never figured out if that was considerate of him or a subtle dig. Steve did, by that time, have an e-mail address.

"Loki, if you treat everybody here like you're treating me, then you're going to have to take responsibility for making this harder on you and everyone else than it has to be. Showing a little humility would go a long way."

Steve may be imagining it, but the ship's crisp, recycled air feels colder, now. It's just enough of a sudden change to put him on edge. He doesn't know everything Loki is capable of.

"I'll leave the contrite and humble act to you, Captain. You're making excellent use of it. If I were a millennium younger I might even be wooed into modeling myself after you. I am not, and I decline your offer to dictate my behavior and reform me to match your personal standards."

Steve doesn't have anything nice to say to that. He opts for not saying anything at all.

**(Then: Germany, 1944)**

The Red Skull sits at the head of the great, polished walnut table standing upon an oriental carpet of golds and muted reds. The table is laid with white, Meißen porcelain plates that match the porcelain serving dishes piled with steaming foods that rest upon a raised platform to deter their heat from deforming the table's finish.

The organic materials contrast nostalgically with the compound's steel walls, engendering memories of dinners with family past – of intimacy.

"Erberhardt, Koch, Größel, Seuß, Schäfer and Dieter, I congratulate you all for achieving the commendation of your peers. Your service honors Hydra and in honoring Hydra honors me," the Red Skull says, raising a glass in toast to his stiff-backed, still companions and drinking to their excellence.

He sets his glass upon the table, nodding toward Seuß.

"We see today among us a specimen of the Jew. Have we not all read that Bolshevism and Jewry are so entangled as to make the Jew a separate species? Was it not put to paper by German anthropologists that the Jews are a race of parasites? If Hydra had no men in the camps recognizing individual excellence of intellect and constitution we would be deprived of this good company and this good man's outstanding service. The future which Hydra ushers in is a future without boundaries."

A smile lights Seuß's face, and snapping to salute both Red Skull and his peers he boasts: "Hail Hydra!"

His five compatriots return his salute and cry in unison.

Red Skull smiles, gesturing for his men to fill their plates. He, himself, abstains from that action to speak.

"In my hours of agony, when by the work of science I transcended all human limitations – with my body an inferno – in those hours I remembered Nietzsche, who said: 'You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes!' When I looked upon the world with new eyes, I saw what our Germany had become: a pitiful, terrified, thrashing animal that had foreseeing its own collapse. I say to you: if the blood of the Jew and the Gypsy could dissolve the fictive Aryan race, would not the Aryan race have then necessarily been overcome by a superior power?" 

He allows his men to think upon his words as he puts food upon his own plate. These men will take his words to their fellows. In this way, no man of Hydra ever feels divorced from the contemplations of his leader.

"The time is near at hand for the storm that shakes the rotten and worm eaten fruits from the branches of Yggdrasil, leaving only the ripest fruits – the most vigorous of men. I am the living proof that the coming race of superior men cannot be identified by the color of the hair or skin or the shape of the nose and skull. Hydra comes as the great noontide which washes away not the bedrock but all castles built upon the sand."

Red Skull cuts into his pot-roasted beef, enjoying the flood of savory juices upon his tongue. He, like his men, eats daily from meticulously rationed provisions. It is at these lunches alone that Hydra feasts. It is in the spirit of fierce camaraderie that the agents of Hydra nominate the men they hold in highest esteem to come here, dine, and bring the Red Skull's words to their ears.

"Erberhardt," Red Skull prompts. "Tell us of the innovations by which you advanced the efficiency of our production lines."

The night is now for conversation. The Red Skull is peerless, but he explicitly understands that true and lasting loyalty is secured by his agents experiencing him closely.

Erberhardt speaks of redesigning multiple machines into a single unit of manufacturing machinery and his active role in the redistribution of operators on the production lines. He becomes animated beneath Red Skull's approving eyes and wins the smiles of his comrades. Red Skull does not smile, but the tilt of his head indicative of attentiveness fuels the jubilant atmosphere that fills the decorated room with the last element of the traditional German lunch: familial closeness.


	5. Chapter 5

**(Now: the Helicarrier)**

Thor quietly suspects that he and Loki have been assigned sole access to a four-bunk junior officers' quarters on the fully staffed Helicarrier neither because they are royalty nor because they are still called gods by some but because Director Fury intuited how purposefully difficult and emotionally volatile Loki could be after hours of interrogation.

Thor has undressed and taken a lower bunk. He understands that he will report to the bridge if "general orders" are called by way of ordering SHIELD's agents to their battle stations and to do the same upon the order "Avengers assemble." Both could herald immediate engagements.

In the dim emergency light of the cabin, Thor has lain face down on the bunk, powerful arms embracing the flimsy pillow of human make which even compressed offers poor comfort to his head. It is lucky that the bunks here, built into the wall, are of steel, for he does not have to worry about the effect of his weight. He hears the mechanical whisking sound of the apartment's sliding door and knows by the footfalls it is Loki. He thinks better of inquiring of him at once, though he turns his head to watch his moody brother shed his clothes, revealing comfortably familiar naked flesh.

Loki does not appear incensed; the tight yet expressionless set of his face speaks instead of patience taxed but not spent and all of Loki's thoughts turned inward. Thor remains silent. He sees Loki's hands trembling as Loki lays his folded coat upon another of the four bunks. Loki clenches and then relaxes them. The tremors are banished.

"Would that I never speak the name 'Thanos' again, but they mean to have me all of tomorrow."

Thor knows his brother wishes for comfort from the fact that he has spoken at all. Already expecting to see Loki through the torments of freshly relieved memories, Thor is startled when Loki's mood changes asudden and he casts a sly look and a slyer smile at him. The sheets that lay over Thor are snatched away and dropped on the floor.

A frown grows in Thor's brow as he attempts to look back over his musclebound shoulder when Loki mounts the bed and straddles him on hands and knees. A cool hand rests upon his left shoulder, fondly trailing across its skin.

"When they speak of muscles which ripple, they speak of you. If only I knew a name for each of them I could serve as cartographer, that generations to come would know the awe which moves me."

Thor's breath quickens at Loki's low, arresting words. The weight of Loki's knees depresses the already-sunken mattress at each side of Thor's thighs; flesh rests against flesh. The memory of Loki's fingers tangled in his hair, a kiss that stunned him still and the scent of dew on Folkvang's verdant fields captures Thor's imagination.

Thor grapples with the unexpectedly potent possibility of Loki above easing his lithe body down upon him and stretching him to a never-experienced fullness with the careful exertion of his hips. 

His pulse races and his face heats. Shame burns within him – a warrior bold with manhood is not meant to be ridden like a mare. The desire that aches in his loins conflicts with ages of upbringing.

Thor does not attempt to deceive his brother, being a poor bluffer, and so Loki can nothing other than know his thoughts exactly, yet Loki lets this uncertain moment endure until Thor's aroused body has grown feverish beneath him and faintly sweats. 

"Will you ask me to take you slowly, big brother? —wondering as I fill you how my last inches can possibly be accommodated? Never before will my cock have found a home in such a masterpiece of flesh," Loki croons.

"It would bring no dishonor to me, be it you," Thor says in a voice rough as a landslide. He shuts his eyes to better keep up with breathing as, behind him, Loki laughs, true joy in that sound. Such laughter is more precious than Freyja's famed necklace.

Thor knows that in him Loki finds escape from the darkness that mire-like sucks at his steps and the madness that blackens his thoughts, damages wrought for Thanos' ends that have so-far proven irreparable. And yet, Thor's mind has yet to fully conceive of all the trespasses of the flesh Loki taunts him with, let alone if he could be roused to them at such a time and in such a place as this – he knows only that, if his brother asks it of him, he will consent.

"Thor, I don't think you're _prepared_ for my cock," Loki says, his thumb brushing soothingly at his lover's back.

Thor thinks hard upon these words.

"I know that at times you have me prepare you and at others you care little if you are first stretched or even oiled."

The Loki chokes on giggling, out of sight behind him. Thor, suddenly confused, hears a smile in Loki's voice:

"No more wonderfully have I ever been misunderstood," Loki says, but he explains no more, only returns to crooning. "Alas that this is a ship of spies and we need wait a time. Despite all my magic I will for no reason risk that any eyes but mine see the first breach of your body by a man."

Thor presses his face into the pillow, wishing it would soothe his scorched cheeks. It offers no balm, nor can the mattress already warmed by his body soothe his achingly erect cock.

He wonders with profound clarity if this is why Loki compelled him to first enter him from behind. Thor knows not how he could meet those shrewd eyes when his whole body is in a sweat and the caress of the air whispers a constant reminder that his buttocks could be purposed for naught but Loki's abstained-from pleasure.

It is not shame hot on him anymore but the heat of the profound truth that he could be reduced to insensible bliss by Loki's considerable strength and able hands.

"Tell me that you've swooned," Loki plies.

"I have not," Thor says, raising his head to speak, words forced from a tightened throat. "Best the wicked instrument of your tongue be silent. It mishandles me worse than I can bear."

Loki's weight shifts above him and Thor exhales a sigh as his brother's tongue licks a single long stroke the length of his spine, in some ways soothing and others torturous.

"I wish to rest," Loki whispers behind him, conqueror no longer but younger sibling instead.

Thor moves slowly. There is scant space in the bunk and they are both tall men, Thor large. A wriggling Loki pushes his way into the space between Thor and the cabin wall so that Thor's back, which was only a moment before so vulnerable, is now a bulwark against all beyond. 

Thor chooses to neither speak nor to fish for the covers Loki threw aside. Tucking Loki into his arms he thinks back to the night his brother, then sister, fell from on high and awoke screaming. He remembers carrying her back to Glaðsheimr, her sleeping head upon his shoulder.

He spoke binding words on that night.

_He will not lay a hand on you. This I vow. Not while I live to defend you. Be I a fool, or a pawn, or a sacrifice, I would suffer all these insults to preserve you._

He sees in hindsight that those words changed everything.

It is not a pleasant experience to seek to sleep with his cock stubbornly erect, but that matters not at all with Loki unconscious, exhausted, beneath his arm. He gazes on Loki's pale face, wishing trauma had never strained its features. His brother ever looks peaked, despite the time that has passed since his exile. 

Thor is unconcerned that they could be found this way or may even now be seen upon cameras. He owes no one save Jane apology that his heart exults with love for Loki and that he be so graced as to see his beloved safe asleep – and that apology not for his love but for his conduct.

**(One Week Later)**

A multitude of screens fills every screen in Nick Fury's office, all of them scrambled, fleshtone colors. When the humans obscured behind them speak, each voice is pitched like the quacking of a duck.

"I don't want to end this without thanking certain parties for sharing their raw data with the global intelligence community," Fury says. "You all saw my people in New York, so you know I'm a man who dreams big. One world, one extraterrestrial defense force. Sleep on it, ladies and gentlemen."

The screens flicker to black one after another. Fury exhales the fatigue of days on end of the world combing through signals intelligence for the barest trace of Hydra related sentiments or of transmissions worded in any alarming way.

Full scale outbreaks are multiplying with barely a nod of respect to quarantine measures. The virulence of the strain exceededs expectations. With humans first in the hundred-thousands rapidly escalating toward millions dying in swamps of their own blood, the director's optimism that there will be governments left three months from now is at a harrowing low.

If Fury compartmentalizes that bleakness, then America's National Security Agency and China's Ministry of State Security flooding the international community with raw data and Vatican intelligence exposing classified information on the inner workings of the ratlines that evacuated fascists from Europe throughout the 1940's fills the director with an elation for the human species that, before the Avengers succeeded, he had never expected to feel in a life spent combating humanity's dregs.

\----

Natasha sits in an identical chair to the caged subject of her attention. They are separated by a wall of glass three feet thick. They have spent the last fifty-two hours together, side by side in quarantine, dressed in the same white scrubs and paper slippers.

There is nothing perceptibly out of the ordinary about either of them. 

Natasha's face is clean of make-up: the little human imperfections in the color of her skin, two blemishes, her missing black eyeliner and an oily case of bedhead make for a sight rarely seen. The power of appearances was drilled into her long ago: nothing to distract from the commanding presence of her eyes. 

(In that, she's made a friend of Tony Stark, who appears with arms outstretched making grabbing motions with his hands and whining "Skin toner! Powder!" if he is unexpectedly without and his public is near.)

The Hydra agent she was pulled off assignment in Iran to extract from Australia is in the same general disrepair. Three days' of stubble has grown on his chin. His once-kempt hair looks unclean. There are scars on his body where implants were surgically removed upon his capture. He's had two false teeth pulled; one cheek is swollen.

Natasha hasn't spoken to him, only watched. She doesn't expect him to crack, but she wants to know him. Uncanny intensity is scribed into his muscles and sharpens his gaze. In contrast, Natasha is fully relaxed. After watching him this long, she has no doubt his enduring vigor comes from bone-deep fanaticism. If she puts herself in his position, she can imagine his chest is ceaselessly flooded with pride for Hydra's apparent achievement. When she traces his line of thought in her emulation she understands he is not a prisoner but a celebrant victor for whom a coming death is no inconvenience.

There's no way to tell if he was raised in the Hydra cult or if he chose his allegiance later in life, but his joy with Hydra's quickly spreading vehicle of death is an emotion difficult for her to understand. The Red Room taught her control, taught her persistence and equipped her with an array of tools both somatic and extra-somatic to employ in her work but did not teach her love for her motherland. Black operations brought her no joy.

In hour fifty-four she cracks him as if his hidden intentions have spilled across the floor. She can read them like a map.

"There's an entire speech in your head. You're dying to tell me all about you. All of you have standing orders to brag about Hydra if you get caught. But you're too emotional over this to have memorized a speech. You're making it better and better in your head while you wait for me to make an overture. You know I have to make an overture because we captured you to extract information. You hope we'll torture you, because you expect to terrify us by using the pain to fuel your fanaticism to poetic new heights," she says.

The man draws back in his chair, a shadow of resentment passing over his expression. He grinds his teeth – lamenting his missing caps, Natasha knows. She watches him resign himself to something less grandiose than the ecstatic exposition he has spent his waking hours planning.

"As much as I love a good blindsiding after somebody lets their ego run on, I can see that because we're stuck in here together this is going to go better if we respect each other," she informs him. " _I_ respect that you're on your way to killing over five billion people. Most people struggle to break a million. So, talk to me. The world's listening."

Frowning in contemplation, he gives fresh thought to his choice of words. His intensity has not diminished, but Natasha can tell this will be more productive now that her prisoner is beginning to sober up from his fervor. She has no interest whatsoever in sitting through a poetic epic about the multifarious wonders of Hydra.

"You know of Hydra's origin," he says. Natasha nods. "It is less likely," he continues, "that you know its doctrines, for none put them to paper."

Natasha shifts her posture without diminishing her attentiveness, sitting back in her chair and crossing her ankle across her thigh. Her hands rest on her thighs, arms furthest apart at the elbows. He wants to tell a story and she wants him to tell it; the setting is relatively informal; better to play friends than riddle her body language with threats of retribution.

He is still leaning toward her but she sees him relaxing, too, less overtly.

"The Third Reich was infatuated with millennialism. Everywhere there were Germans willing to believe Germany's great future had already been determined either by God or by the excellence of the Aryan race," he says. "There is nothing visionary about delusions like these. The Americans had better success with 'Manifest Destiny', before that the British Empire had their own run with Dominion Theology. Of course, Germany had already had its turn with the Holy Roman Empire but it wanted another. "

The man wets his lips. He's beginning to get that look of rapture, again. Natasha hopes it won't ramp up to its previous heights.

"The Red Skull had a different sense of things. He had read Nietzsche and Darwin and others and had completely become an atheist. He believed that if we were to enter an age of a new, superior humankind – for us to _evolve_ – that humans must usher it in themselves." He's begun combining his words with emphatic gestures. "He made clear to everyone that our hope could not lie in a leader, or a race, or some kind of Providence but that our hope lay in science alone. I think it's much better to have a scientist singularly devoted to his material efforts who doesn't fall into the trap of becoming a propagandist than to have any kind of messiah – holy or secular. If you live to join the new species, I hope you'll come to agree. 

"The Red Skull disappeared, but that mattered very little. He was more than a man, but he had been made superhuman by human device. The men of Hydra had seen him with their own eyes, and they saw Captain America, also. It was enough that the Red Skull had pointed the way from man to superman.

"In these past sixty years Hydra has toiled without rest. We each did our part to mount the infrastructure so that when a device for transcendence on a large scale became achievable Hydra could immediately spread it to every corner of the world. 

"We harvested _Variola_ during its eradication and our men studied in America, Russia, and North Korea learning how to heat it up, to achieve tremendous potency. When the Red Skull returned, he found everything in order and in one week perfected Hydra's work."

For all her reserve, a shiver runs up Natasha's spine at those words. She lets some of that fresh wariness into her expression as an appeal to his vanity.

"Returned from where?"

Her companion smiles a blank smile, the peace of the faithful falling over him.

"That I will not say."

Living on a live video and audio feed watched shift after shift by SHIELD agents, Natasha doesn't need to report her findings to her superiors.

What grates her most about the worldwide manhunt launched in these last seconds is that she may be unable to play any part in it. Medical comes in daily in their biohazard suits to triple check for any signs of the smallpox virus in her blood, but even with the most advanced medical technology in the world at their disposal quarantine will be a minimum of one hundred twenty hours.

Continuing to hold his gaze, she says, with courtesy:

"Thank you for your cooperation."

\----

Loki is shocked awake by an ear-splitting electronic wail that fills her cabin and can be heard broadcast from more distant speakers throughout the Helicarrier.

A voice follows: "All hands to battle stations! Flight: Secure the deck."

"We report to the bridge," Thor murmurs into her ear beneath another electronic scream, his beard rough against her skin and his warm arm still draped over her waist.

"I'm not an Avenger," she says, frowning, a pang of annoyance in her breast.

"No, but if I've understood you correctly these past months you _are_ feeling vengeful," Thor says, arm withdrawn just far enough for his firm palm to smooth across the contours of her body.

Loki groans, pushing away to escape Thor's heat, feet touching the pleasantly body-temperature floor. She goes not to her armor, fitted for a man, but to her borrowed SHIELD uniform, stripped of insignias. She makes a better fit for the bunk she shares with her brother in her lighter and slimmer form. To transform would take some minutes; time the alarms say they do not have. She sweeps a comb through the dark waves of her hair and binds it in the clutches of the blue, elastic cloth a female crewman gave her while Thor dons his armor.

By now there is nothing secret about their relations.

_"Are you two like together?" Tony Stark asks in mess over trays of food. "Like, together-together?"_

_"We share a sexual relationship," Loki says. She has two trays and Thor three. Human fare is singularly unfulfilling for organisms of their density and metabolism._

_"Huh. Okay. Whatever grinds your loins," Tony says; he gets back to attacking his food._

_James Rhodes shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders at Thor before following Tony's example. Steve Rodgers is longer stymied, but then Rhodes claps his hand on Rogers' shoulder, sharing an understanding look. Steve continues eating as he thinks it over._

_Clint Barton has now returned to the Helicarrier, but does not eat with them._

Loki is relieved not to bear the burden of exercising discretion, although she hasn't said so. She could not endure these days of waiting without Thor's attentions. Her trauma-instilled fear of Thanos remains relentlessly immediate. She has nothing positive to say about the human ritual of 'debriefing': _What happened, in your own words? What was the hardest part for you? What was most valuable to you in maintaining resistance against Thanos? Is there anything you can think of now that you would have done differently?_

They granted her small relief when the process moved from their offensively invasive questions to extracting details about Thanos' capacities and potential allies.

Since the first day, and now, still, memories of witnessing destruction on an incomprehensible scale and Thanos' cruel instruction force the cracks in her hard-won security of mind wide. Suddenly Thanos looms above her then-male body, his eyes burning the truths he speaks into her mind. She repeats Thor's promise to her in her head like a charm. When she can, she begs her brother with fingertips and lips to so overwhelm she thinks of nothing but cementing his devotion to her through new pleasures.

As a woman, her chances for that redouble.

She will speak for the advantages of a swelling cunt whose slick depth more readily accepts Thor's length and girth and so, too, for all the sensation it is capable of when her anus gives pleasure only at its sensitive entrance. She engages him with fresh spontaneity – a boon when one or the other is so often caught up in thinking through battle plans for the coming violence and thoughts are prone to wander. It makes standing sex considerably easier to facilitate: Loki's back pressed to the cabin's steel wall, her lover, over six hundred pounds of bone and muscle in motion, enwrapped in her sinuous limbs, or, once, in the hours of night, her fingernails clawing through the water beads condensed on a narrow shower's slick wall, breasts dragged up and down it, Thor's hands braced either side of her, hot water cascading through his hair, over his shoulders, down his broad chest and down her spine.

She savors the shocking difference of Thor parting the lips of her cunt with his thumbs and plumbing its crevasse with thirsty strokes of his hot tongue. When he slides his long fingers into the satin caress of her vagina and diligently explores its textures with careful pressure or when she is stretched to her fullest by his erection she fantasizes of him deeper inside her yet, taking root and making her belly swell and breasts sore, so that even when he is far from her she may slide her hands over her child-heavy abdomen and know he is with her.

She would call it most valuable of all that her body is capable of this one superior power unknowable to its counterpart, but then fear takes hold of her. She imagines a still born or deformed child produced from an ultimately incongruous union of Jötunn and Áss and every thought leaves her.

Each morning and each night she counts the days in her mind until the stone – much like a healing stone – that she dissolved over her body on Asgard will no longer ensure her female body against taking to the seed he expends inside her.

When Thor has clad himself they make their way to the bridge together. As they walk they hear the distant sound of water streaming off the Helicarrier's wings and feel the gradual change in pressure as the mighty craft ascends skyward.

Clint Barton gives her less than a second's scrutiny as she enters the bridge. He looks away, to Nick Fury, his expression unchanged. Loki remembers sitting close to him in the cool dank of the sewer, listening to him spill all his comrades' vulnerabilities with professional candor, his eyes lit milky blue, reminiscent of a man gone blind.

Loki welcomes the sight of him. He proved in every way dependable and destroyed many a Chitauri, blindsiding Loki himself. At the time, she hated all of it and would have taken pleasure in the chance to rend him apart. In the face of the terrible reality of Thanos, the presence of so expert and exceptional a human is fortifying.

Loki wonders where the Black Widow is. Anger flares at the memory of _her_ , though it passes. She dismantled Loki in every way: with her duplicity, in recovering Barton and in having the presence of mind to end the Chitauri invasion. Loki knows not if the Widow's actions directly prevented the Hulk from crippling the Helicarrier, but suspects she made a significant contribution to controlling the damage. It is difficult for her to think of the Black Widow with the same confidence that Barton instills her with. Her slights were the most personal and ultimately catastrophic.

Her paranoia whispers it was Romanov who placed her directly under threat of Thanos' retribution. She cannot divorce the woman from the sight of her standing over her at the end of things with the scepter that she drained of power in her hands.

Director Fury turns his back to his consoles, commanding the full attention of his ostensible Avengers. 

"At 1400 Zulu strong earthquakes occurred at the Tocan, Yellowstone and Changbaishan volcanos followed by simultaneous eruptions. We do not presently have accurate death tolls. What we _do_ have is three armies of the same race of unidentified hostiles overrunning the Northwest United States, China and Argentina. We are deploying to Argentina to support the first armed responders from Argentina, Chile and Paraguay. The US and Canadian militaries are responding in the United States and the People's Liberation Army and Korean People's Army are responding on the China-North Korea boarder."

He lays his hand atop a console, tapping a command with his thumb. The craggy, charred creatures with faultlines glowing red dressed in fearsome black armor and wielding their black weapons are immediately familiar to Loki. Her stomach twists with anger and sick sorrow.

"These are fire Jötnar," Thor says, bitter and sure, before Fury can speak. All attention in the room falls to the god. SHIELD agents on the bridge turn around in their chairs. Thor raises his voice for them to better hear him. "They are of Múspellsheimr. Their king is Surtr. They were spawned from the birthing throes of the universe. They can at any time light themselves aflame and, if allowed their concentration, radiate solar heat in close quarters. Jötnar in your modern parlance is 'Devourers'. Their single purpose will be to scorch your planet barren." He hesitates, then with confidence adds: "This is no compulsion placed upon them by Surtr. They have been raised from their infancy to take joy only in doom. They will not parley."

Loki shuts her eyes. She is washed back to the memory of the humans of Stuttgart fleeing screaming from their marble palace and the mad enthusiasm which swept her up and carried her, walking tall, into the streets. Be it her heritage or her unwrought mind, she lived the perverse exultation of which Thor speaks. She remembers, too, Baldur's dead body both crippled and burned, seared flesh peeling from his corpse as they moved him. She cringes, but forces her attention back to the present.

"Two thousand years ago their counterparts and in some ways opposites the frost Jötnar came to Earth. Our father's army repelled them," Thor says.

Loki finds her voice.

"I am certain that this, too, is the mocking work of Thanos. Asgard's army cannot be expected to arrive in force when the Tesseract is under our guard."

"We need the Hulk, Director," Rogers says from where he stands behind the table with his arms crossed.

Loki's nausea heightens at the thought – at the memory of the beast implementing her to crush a floor of stone undergirded by metal. Could she stand up and walk away from this, leaving the humans to die, she would do so now. She cannot. Jealous ferocity foregrounds itself whether she thinks upon Thor facing those relentless Jötnar which felled Baldur or the Mad Titan. Violent desperation once again pricks her to make war.

"We'll get the Hulk," Fury says. With his good eye, he glances over his shoulder toward his staff. "Transmit information on these Devourers to the allied forces as we generate it, and memo the President, Secretary of Defense and General Ross: 'Set the Abomination on these bastards.' My exact words."

"That's a good idea that every single one of us should get behind," Stark says, for whatever reason stunned, his eyebrows inching up in disbelief.

"Blonsky wants new enemies, and he's very, very angry. They say he's been on a diet of mindfulness meditation to try and repair the frontal lobe erosion," Fury says, words directed only to Tony – Loki can sees she's not the only one in the dark. "Naturally, it's been about as successful as it was for Dr. Banner."

Stark rolls his eyes, overcome by a look of disgusted irritation. He blows off the dismissal of his protest, ejecting air from the side of his mouth, returning to the face of a grim observer.

"Thor, Loki, do these things have any weaknesses?" Rogers asks.

"Water slows them. It causes their crusts to harden at their joints. It is an effective tactic only if they are plunged into or doused by a great body of it," Thor says.

"Our aim should be to dismember them. Breaking the crust to release the lava within them can lay them low. This is why they wear their volcano forged armor," Loki continues. "I have not come armed with weapons worthy of the task, and I am worth any thirty or more human soldiers. The fire Jötnar are well matched to the Æsir."

It seems unimportant to speak a word of her familial relation. She would fare no better in Jötunn guise, fleshly while the fire Jötnar are elemental. 

"The ash rules out conventional air support, but Iron Man and War Machine can get in there and provide targeting for the Argentinians' ballistic missiles. I'll leave it up to SHIELD to get those declassified and online," Rhodes says.

Fury digests that for some seconds. Loki can see plans being spun behind his eye. It's a look she's seen in mirrors.

"You deploy at 0200 Zulu; we're modifying the quinjet to handle the ash," he says, after that pause. "Suit up."

Loki prepares to go with Thor, but Barton startles her, approaching her from across the floor.

"Hold on. I saw what you did to some good men I knew down at PEGASUS."

Loki freezes, staring at Barton in alarm. All eyes are on her. In the corner of her eye she sees the others who had begun to leave stop, too, and turn.

Barton's expression is grim, his eyes narrowed, and Loki is rife with uncertainty 

"You've got a keen eye. I'm down one co-pilot and gunner. I've watched how fast you adapt. I wanna put you in a flight sim and see what you've got. The jet's guns can dish out the damage, and I want your magic behind me if the she goes down. —she's under me, Cap."

Loki does not know if she's relieved not to stand accused or affronted to be ordered by a human.

"Understood," Rogers says. 

Loki's petty scowl and silent tongue are her acquiescence.

"Come on," Barton says, nodding toward the hallway. "Let's get to the armory and I'll show you what we've got."

Loki casts a last look at Thor before following Barton deeper into the Helicarrier. It is a look he has shared with his brother many hundred times, inscrutable to the humans: _Should I perish afield, we shall meet in Valhalla._

It is not the Æsir way to forgo the opportunity for a glorious death. Loki is argr, and so alone among her Æsir compatriots cannot have her honor questioned if she sidesteps that particular cultural pressure. Yet, argr or not, Loki would shame Thor should she speak her heart and tell him to return at any cost, honor be damned.

Neither will she share she has no reason to believe that a being of her ilk will be admitted to Valhalla.

**(Wyoming)**

The peak upon which the Titan Thanos stands is lower now than yesterday. It dropped by meters as the earth shifted beneath it while simultaneously the eruption's pyroclastic flow piled tephra into the valley below. The open caldera continues to spew dark particulate. A column of ash soars into the upper atmosphere, blotting out the sunlight. It will bring winter across the land beneath its shadow.

The ebon-robed woman beside him wears a human's face, cadaver white save for the barest yet gradually deepening flush upon her cheeks and lips.

"My mistress, you are vibrant today," Thanos says in a voice as deep as the distant roar of the churning magma through which the sons of Múspell passed into Midgard. 

The lady does not speak. Thanos follows her gaze toward the horizon, but he sees only the skeletal remnants of a forest. The distance is a haze of grey.

He trains his eyes upon her slighter form, again.

"I regret my pressing business takes me far from the killing fields where you reap your harvest, but celebrate that our prize is so near at hand."

The lady turns her head, raising her gaze past Thanos' distended chin and short, blunted nose to match his own. Her sedate expression in no way alters. The Titan reaches out his huge hand to her, cupping the air beside her as if it were her cheek he touched.

They stand unmoving in the hot, poisonous air. Thanos knows her transformation from skeleton to flesh so well he can see the effusion of color into it no matter how faintly and gradually it grows.

The clearing of a throat behind them breaks their moment of intimacy. Thanos looks away to glare upon Mephisto while reluctantly drawing back and then lowering his hand.

Mephisto supplicates the Titan, mixing curtsy and bow and coming as near to the rock beneath him as his long limbs allow. Resting his elbow upon his knee he looks up, tilting his head to the side like a bird.

"Thanos, I am certain I am interrupting, although the Ebon Lady graces me not with the sight of her. It is not only because of the debilitating revulsion that shudders through my being at the sight of love but because the way through Múspellsheimr is long. As childishly youthful and shortsighted as Odin is, we should not give him too long to brood upon our plans, for he is a being of tremendous power."

"Rise, devil. You speak sense," Thanos pardons, although his attention is drawn back to his mistress. "My beloved, I will see you in Asgard."

Thanos takes his leave of her with a bow of his own and Mephisto stands. The Titan's half-ton footfalls send debris scattering as he descends the peak. Upon that peak he waited while the scalding gas and ash passed around him and pyroclastic material rained down. His keen eyes seek a path toward the caldera through the ruins of the ancient forest. They are not so keen that he could avoid being blinded by the initial discharge, and he does he wish to ford deep tephra. Neither would impede him were he to summon the cosmic energies within himself and make his journey with their blast clearing the way, but any form of radiation would put the Titan at risk of detection.

Mephisto walks beside him, fully corporeal.

"I will remember Earth when she is gone," the devil says. "—for a matter of days."

"Its people did well to sacrifice to my mistress the whole Chitauri armada. Their ability to rouse the Tesseract gave me pause, but I know now they were only fumbling in the dark. The complacent Asgardians, stupid with brawn, are little better. They wait frothing at the mouth for me to bring an army down upon them."

The devil smiles a smile ripe in shared confidences.

"It's unlike you to miss the opportunity to orchestrate a slaughter on such a scale."

Thanos laughs as they begin the ascent to the broken earth of the open caldera.

"My mistress, Death, won't mourn the lost opportunity. Twenty-thousand years I have searched for a Cosmic Cube to claim as my own. I have meditated on nothing but how best to delight her when I spend it."

The devil stops upon the slope. Thanos turns violet eyes upon him. Mephisto matches his gaze, unctuous smile on his crimson lips.

"I take my leave here. I will meet you in Múspellsheimr. You should have no trouble making your way to Surtr's throne. Close though we may be to your ultimate goal, my left ear itches when my thralls are in need of correction."

Black smoke curls in the air where the vanished devil just stood. It is swept away along with the passing ash. Thanos puts Mephisto out of his mind. He has no doubt the devil is off scheming. If it is against him Mephisto schemes, thirty thousand years as a tactician feed Thanos the knowledge that the devil is cleverer than to meddle with him while he walks undistracted through Múspellsheimr.

**(East of Loncopué, Argentina)**

The quinjet flies in low, relying on instrument flight rules to navigate. Hawkeye can't rely on identifying landmarks through the particulate-choked air. Volcanic ash streams across the landscape, carried by the westerlies coming in from across the Pacific. It coats the short grass and low scrub of Argentina's expanse like dirty, unmelting snow. The rivers that cut through the landscape carry sickly, off-white crusts.

The city of Loncopué with its population of almost five thousand has been reduced to scorched, half-eaten corpses amid smoldering wreckage. The demons are marching on beneath the cover of ash, toward the southeast.

The first sweep on the quinjet takes the Avengers over the body of the army. Devourers let their black spears fly at high velocity, but no other aircraft has confronted Múspell's sons. Clint outmaneuvers their assault.

The Land Operations Command has deployed two mechanized infantry units from Toay and the 4th Parachute Brigade to Zapalas, the heart of the province of Neuquén, ahead of the smoke. The rest of Argentina's army and the armies of Chile and Paraguay are closing in, but they have a long way to travel – jets and transport helicopters are useless. 

Elsewhere, the Union of South American Nations is strategizing across public and secret channels how best to expend their military resources. With Peru's boarders closed and Peruvian and visiting emergency personnel already in over their heads with _Variola_ containment, fears of bringing the virus south and laying waste to South America's armies haunt every conversation.

"Avengers, we're the frontline," Captain America says. "We have to slow these things down until the tanks can roll in. Iron Man, War Machine, get out there and call down those ballistic missiles—" It's as soon said as the pair of old friends deploy from the back of the quinjet. "Thor, you'll split them up with the lightning and tornados and I'll eliminate stragglers. Hawkeye and Loki – you're in the quinjet until it's out of ammunition or out of service." He pauses to study Loki, but only a second. "Clint, I just need to hear you tell me she logged enough time in the simulation."

"No gunner can replace Nat, but she's seen these things before. She knows where they're weak and she's manically violent. You may've picked up on it with Thor, but these Asgardians are serious about mastering every possible way to kill somebody."

"God help you," Steve says, consenting.

An instinctive hate leaps to the captain's gullet at the evil smile sharpened with glee coupled with coquettish eyes that the svelte, disarmingly-lovely Loki gives him from the co-pilot's seat.

"As a god, I'll be certain to help myself."

Steve lets it go.

"Thor, take me down," he says instead.

The strong cinch of Thor's arm around his waist reminds Steve why the Asgardians speak of themselves as gods. His own strength would be crushed under Thor's if it was brawn against brawn. He keeps a tight hold of his vibranium shield as Thor swings Mjölnir to speed and they plummet from the craft faster than at free-fall. 

"Forgive my sister. Thanos made dealing pain her ecstasy," Thor says against the wind; Steve's ears can hear the words but not the emotional nuance.

Thor slows his descent, dropping Steve at its perigee and then rising above the approaching army, immediately speeding toward a chosen target. Captain America calls himself a strategist, but his practice doesn't match the reflexive decision making born from over a thousand years of making war.

Today, Steve's first and only concern is staying alive.

Ashy, flat terrain stretches out before him. The captain would have preferred the fight stay in the mountains where Thor could bring down rockslides and Hawkeye and Loki could set up a killing field.

He sees Hawkeye wait for the lightning to start before the assassin swings around for a strafing run on the Jötnar's flank. Loki isn't missing, and that's great, except for that nagging knowledge that Loki is going at the task with a sick pleasure reeking of malice that Thor and Tony's chauvinistic fervor lacks.

The discharge-choked air churns with the violence of a tornado. A whirling column of air descends from on high, flinging Jötnar in all directions.

Thoughts of Natasha come to Steve and pass. He can't dwell on the possibility she's infected with the Red Skull's agent of swift death, but he'd give two fingers to swap Loki for the agent of deception he can trust.

The fury of the tempest scatters their foes. Thor lands heavily, a cloud of dust and ash billowing up around him. Steve rushes forward to join him in cleaving the limbs off the front line of fire Jötnar.

\----

Clint doesn't curse as the quinjet's ammo runs out. Ammo runs out. He swings wide of the battle, looking to his mirth-filled flight partner. Old hate stings inside him to see Loki as overjoyed with killing as any other psychopath.

Old hate won't slow these monsters down. Clint spares it as little room as he can.

"Loki, think you can you fly this?" he asks, banking on Loki's ability to seamlessly grasp the intricacies of the modern world that he witnessed both as the god's unwilling servant and in the past hours.

Loki takes pause and inventory, her eyes skirting the 

"The basic design is not intrinsically different from a Chitauri sled. The central device controls whether the jet is ascending or descending and heading right or left. When you use the pedals on the floor, we change directions while the jet remains level. Pulling and pushing that bar determines our speed. If you use that we slow very quickly. That circle keeps track of the horizon. There, it changes the assembly of the wings either for speed or hovering. When you manipulate those levers, the craft produces a surge of magical energies in one wing or the other to tilt us aside suddenly," she says.

Clint doesn't think there's anything else to add Loki can't figure out. There'll be no engaging autopilot features in this setting.

"So: Yes. Except for the magic part, let's say you can."

Loki pauses in turn, brow wrinkling in perplexity, then explains carefully – but not so carefully that Clint takes offense:

"What Stark calls his 'arc reactor' is the definition of a magical artifact. It draws forth great energies from the fundamental material of the universe. So does Mjölnir. So, too, this craft. So, too, can I. What would you say? It 'does science'?"

Clint doesn't have time to has out an answer to that.

"That's Iron Man's field," he defers. "Mine is blowing these things apart from the back of this aircraft. I know you said you can use a bow but mine has eight different arrowheads I pick out through the grip, so let's aim for efficiency," he says, unbuckling himself from the flight seat. He passes a grim last look to Loki as she switches seats. "Have fun. Don't crash. Avoid those spears."

The spears are the thing Clint's justifiably paranoid of.

There are straps for the kind of task Clint's attempting. For once he gets those out and secures himself before he opens and steps onto the hanger door.

Loki plays a mean game of monkey-see-monkey-do, but overcompensation is happening under Clint's feet. Clint quickly acclimates to just how much overcompensation and its gradual decline; it takes more than an unsteady ride to make him miss.

\----

Iron Man flies a wide circle around the ejection of Argentinian bedrock by the ton as the first ballistic missile penetrates the ground and explodes, raining debris on the Jötnar army. His helmet dampens the incredible rumble, tuning it out into background noise.

"Time to sweep up," he says to Rhodey, amid his usual chatter with JARVIS, flying down to blast broken chunks of rock from the demons with concussive bursts from his palms and his own micro-missiles.

He's ashamed to say War Machine is having a better time of this. That's the lucky thing about handing over a Stark-outfitted suit to Rhodey for good instead of on loan. They make a mean pair: One firing energy, the other kinetic projectiles. It happens raw energy isn't the best weapon against these elementals.

"Fury," he says inside his helmet, Jarvis making the connection immediately.

"What is it?" the spymaster asks in a booking-no-nonsense tone.

"Heads up before all your special friends start chunking nukes around. These guys eat up my laser modules. They feel toastier warm inside if I make direct contact with plasma. I got a bad feeling that dosing them up with thermal and ionizing radiation would spawn radioactive giants that no longer have a shit to give about armor. Sweeps of their exploded anatomy tell me they've got inner and outer cores, like little planets. Expose those inner cores and smash 'em, but don't feed them after midnight."

"Copy that, Iron Man," Fury says. There's no more communication on his end. Nick Fury is the busiest man alive.

Cursing his bad luck he rockets in to grab hold of and rip off a piece of black armor, letting a single missile blow away the remaining crust from the thing's upper body in his wake.

War Machine puts the monster down with kinetic ammunition.

Another ballistic missile impacts half a mile away. The Devourers at the site of the impact are ripped apart by ejected rock. 

"Score about sixty for Argentina," Tony says.

"Score eighty-nine for War Machine," Rhodey says smugly.

"Yeah? Well I _helped_ ," Tony mumbles, furious at his armor's ineffectiveness but keeping eighty-percent of that out of his voice. "This isn't gonna cut it. Our impersonation of holding the line is pathetic. Jarvis stopped counting to the horizon at a million."

"So, saying they split up even, we've got the equivalent of the combined United States and Chinese armies crawling up out of volcanos on three different continents – except the troops all double as tanks," Rhodey says. "Tell me one more time why you weren't okay with SHIELD developing WMDs with the Tesseract?"

Tony's mouth tastes as bitter as emotion swamps him.

"I am totally and completely fine with that today. I _yearn_ for it, like I yearn for simple carbohydrates. But if you remember my tale of heroism – I know that you hung on my every word – Loki took control of the Tesseract while it was in the most secure facility SHIELD and NASA could cook up. Zero chance we could hold onto it."

"Once the army rolls in we gotta get to work on a plan B, Tony," Rhodey says while air and earth shake with the impact of a third ballistic missile to the north.

"Once the army rolls in," Tony says grimly. The Devourers are onto his games now. It's getting dodgy closing in but avoiding a potentially-fatal burst heat. "I feel like we have a close interpersonal relationship with this gang. Let's hit a different battalion," he says.

War Machine follows close on his tail.

**(Then: Niðavellir)**

The Dwarven race, the Dvergar, rules over a planet of solid stone. Across billions of years they have delved as deep as its rocky heart but they have yet to expend its bounty. Be it a sunless sphere in space between dimensions, Niðavellir claims the title of the first material planet. Before the dark energy at the foundation of the universe exploded into the diverse and seemingly endless expanse of Midgard, Niðavellir hardened within the chaos of Yggdrasil's expansion. 

The dwarves are as tall as Æsir, their bodies profuse with thick black hair. Their skin is as pallorous as the fish and salamander they subsist on along with fungus in the dark. In bright light – of which there is little beneath the surface of Niðavellir – close inspection reveals the dark bodies of the dwarves' inner organs through their skin. Dvalin, a dark elf of Svartalfheimr who wandered wide under the cloak of night, and learned all of runes there was to learn, came to Niðavellir at the end of his journeys and carved his children from its stone, inscribing them with life. He gave to the dwarves his knowledge of runes – a magic which they have achieved mastery of beyond the understanding of any other race.

Thor owes them Mjölnir. The Æsir owe them much more. Even so, Thor is repulsed by the sickly look about them. He knows Loki spent eight years among them beneath the ground studying their ways. Rumor whispers in trade he bore them babes in trade. Thor will not think on that. At least, he will think on it as little and as far between as he capable of. His brother, when his sister, seems to have no interest in motherhood but to cultivate strange fruits. The reputation Odin's middle son carves for himself is – whatever else it also is – unforgettable.

Seeing Niðavellir rich in gold, iron, exotic metals, and every kind of gemstone – diamond bounteous – the fire Jötnar whose forges never rest desire no less than to conquer the planet and piece by piece reduce it to slag in the fires of their volcanic home. The Dvergar are independent brutes, but they do not hesitate to call upon the debts of the Æsir, Vanir and Álfar when the fire Jötunn make their incursions.

"These tunnels were not carved for a man of healthy weight!" Volstagg curses, unlike the others not walking two abreast.

"Announcing to all of them we are coming was my plan, as well," Fandral says companionably.

"Both of you," Sif murmurs.

Thor's veins pulse with his desire for bloodshed. In these times, he can think of naught else but the chance to test and prove Mjölnir's peerless power.

"They should know that we come for them, and they should fear it," Thor says.

Although behind Thor, Thor can hear in Loki's voice that Loki, who has made a moonish lantern of a stone, rolls his eyes:

"Because the Jötnar are famous for cowering at anything. Ever."

"We will take them – by surprise or not – but Sif is right that by surprise would be our wisest course. We fight not on the open soil but in the tunnels of the Dvergar. For today, like Dvergar we should fight," Baldur says as quietly as Sif from ahead of Thor.

Hogun beside him touches the young prince's shoulder in silent agreement.

The advice displeases Thor. Fandral and Volstagg make their own discontented noises, but the company lapses into silence. 

The passage they walk is one old and long-hidden. Unlike the Dwarven thoroughfares, no carvings decorate its walls. It is but a smooth channel along which messengers may pass in times of urgency, or assault bands in times of invasion. The band of Æsir mean to come in at back of a Jötnar legion driven deep into the maze-like Dwarven caverns by the combined forces' frontal assault. Lost and scattered, the Jötnar can no longer attack as a wave of flame pouring through Niðavellir's veins but burn instead as scattered bonfires.

As the Æsir creep from the Dwarves' hidden door into the mighty hallways of the mines it is a simple thing to feel on their skin the nearest band of Jötnar. The breeze born from the hot air displacing the cold wafts from only one direction.

Loki mutes the stone in his hands to the dimmest of lights. Weapons are drawn and footsteps silenced to the best of the ability of each individual warrior. Thor will creep or stalk when the enemy is unknown or the objective is of such value that battle must take second place, but these are old enemies and he has already spilled their magma today. He is impatient to engage.The ultimate and only goal is to assault them in force. He keeps close in mind that the Dvergar are masters of defending their tunnels. Baldur is right that in their allies' land it is no dishonor to adopt the ancient traditions of Dwarven warriors.

The Æsir warband is taken by surprise.

Not because they are spied by their enemies.

Baldur throws his arm out. The others halt. Crouching close to the ground, they press themselves to the wall.

Great stairs descend from the passage they stand in now into the cavern below. The light of the flame Jötnar engrossed in conversation within its belly casts an orange glow on its walls, but brightest of all blazes Surtr's legendary sword.

 _A magnificent prize it will make for the vaults of Glaðsheimr,_ Thor thinks.

He looks among his brothers and his dearest friends. Their resolve is set. The faces of Baldur, Hogun and Sif are possessed with the same hunger that has sunken its teeth into Thor. Volstagg, Fandral and Loki do not share their lust for armed conflict but Thor knows that beneath their skin their pulses race. When embroiled in battle all will excel, even if Loki is equipped, as he rarely is, with a spear rune warded – as are all their weapons – to withstand their enemies' great heat.

They are seven, their enemies thirty-two. The have fought against worse odds, but not against worse foes.

There is no sky from which Thor may summon the storm; a disadvantage, but not a damning one.

They raise no battle cry when they rush as one from their hiding place down upon Surtr's band of Jötnar. In the wild onset of battle Thor moves by reflex alone, but those reflexes he has honed over a lifetimes. The Æsir loose cries from their throats once their weapons find purchase. It is not to intimidate their enemies. The fire Jötnar are strangers to intimidation; moreso in Surtr's presence. Instead their exclamations report their positions, that they not be divided by enemy forces and may exploit chances to join each other in attack.

Surtr's roar shakes the cavern. He is separated from the fight by his own soldiers. They vanish from his path as he charges the Æsir. It is Baldur who intercepts him. Baldur's shield bears the first blow of that fiery blade.

Thor knows the other Jötnar in these tunnels will rally to their king's cry. He shatters the Jötunn engaged with him into pieces beneath its armor. It collapses into a heap, bleeding lava. Thor wishes to have Sutr for himself, to reap the glories of single combat, but Baldur fields him admirably so Thor chooses to guard his brother's flanks from furious Devourers. The cavern floor gives traction to his boots; with that he can rain the heaviest of blows upon his foes.

Amid the din of battle he can hear Loki laughing, a slight that accompanies victory through deception. Volstagg bellows; the blows of Fandral's blade against rock and black metal are close enough to ring clear. Thor fights with a grin across his features, exuberant, matching and overcoming his enemy's challenges.

The sound of Baldur deflecting Surtr's blows with shield and striking with his axe grows closer. His brother is not known for retreats but is known for prudence. Though high on battle, Thor understands Baldur is making no progress. It is his turn to take on Asgard's foe. They effortlessly switch positions, Thor knocking Surtr's sword away with Mjölnir as Baldur skirts his back and, with a cry, rushes the Jötnar Thor abandoned.

Surtr is the greatest warrior Thor has yet contested. Thor intuits why Baldur abandoned any expectation of landing a fatal blow. Surtr's strength is a match for Thor's. In speed and ferocity he threatens to _out_ match the God of Thunder.

Thor could be no happier than now.

The air around them quakes with the blows of sword against hammer and hammer against sword. Surtr's whole rocky body is aflame; the heat from the Jötunn's fire does not scorch but dries the sweat upon Thor's durable skin. Friend and foe alike make way for them as they wage battle across the cavern floor. No soul is so foolish as to intervene in support of their royal leaders. The two are worked into frenzy. Stalagmites around them explode from the blowback of their dueling weapons' magics.

Mjölnir does not crackle with lightning, but it is her potent magic primed by Thor's own that repels that of Surtr's more ancient artifact.

Though all his energies pour into this contest, Thor mistakes not Loki's scream. 

Never has Thor heard a sound like it. Rage harshens it, but that is no battle cry. The emotion central to the scream echoing from the cavern roof is one Thor cannot name. His brother does not sound in pain and it is a cry too forceful to be of fear.

Whatever Loki's plight, Thor cannot disengage from Surtr to lend his aid. Heart stricken with restless worry, still he battles the Jötunn king. Giving Surtr quarter would be the end of not only Thor but both his brothers and his beloved comrades.

The unbridled frenzy of his clash with this Jötunn is beginning to take its toll on his body, but Surtr's blows are no longer as powerful as when they first joined weapons, either.

The reinforcements Surtr roared for come too late. Dvergar, pale as draugar – the walking dead – stream into the cavern from another front, whooping their native cry and falling upon their foes.

Surtr realizes the battle can no longer be won. He backs into a crowd of his own people, although waves of force from his battle with Thor shatter their rocky skin. Thor disengages. The smaller Jötnar will swarm him to protect the sword at any cost. He sends his hammer flying forward in his stead. It does not meet with Surtr, only one of his soldiers who explodes under the impact, showering his brothers in lava and stone but denying Mjölnir its purpose.

Recalling the hammer to his hand, Thor he lusts after the blazing weapon he meant to take as his prize despite alongside his comrades winning the day through enduring until the fire Jötnar were driven into shameful retreat.

The fire Jötnar collapse the tunnel they escape through behind them. The dwarves stream whooping down another passage in pursuit.

Thor's next thought is of Loki. His eyes search the cavern, rubble-strewn with scorched rock.

He sees Loki crouched upon the ground – Sif and Hogun crouched with him. Now that he has the leeway to fear, fear overtakes him. He rushes to them, standing in shock looking down upon a body and face so dearly familiar now crushed from the bows of Jötnar weapons. A wave of solar heat broiled Baldur's skin.

"He is dead, Thor," Hogan says. The definitiveness of those words coming from the tacit Hogun make the news all the heavier.

Rage and revenge banish all other sentiment from Thor's mind.

"I will destroy them!" he roars, voice resounding from the walls of the emptied cavern. He turns immediately after the dwarves, but Loki grabs hold of his cloak, his grasp so fast it checks even Thor's strength.

Hoarse with grief, Loki wears his own tempestuous anger openly.

"They are in retreat! They will vanish before you can ever lay Mjölnir to them. Leave us not. Mourn with me our brother who died so valiantly."

Thor stands turned away, shoulders trembling not with sorrow but with unspent aggression, mind blind but Loki's grip unrelenting.

Volstagg and Fandral have made their way to them.

"I could not reach him," Loki says, whether to himself or the others, or perhaps to Thor. Thor has at last resigned himself, his scarlet cape no longer strained between them. "My spear flew true and buried itself in the monster's head but it did not interrupt the Jötunn's heatwave. It needed no eyes to complete its work."

"Three were upon him," Hogan says. "He at first repelled them with great prowess but at the end could not best them."

Thor kneels, now, stroking what of Baldur's white-blonde hair has not been burned away. He remembers days on the practice grounds, his younger self and an even younger Loki taking turns holding the babe while filling their brother's eyes with the spectacle of Æsir at battle. Thor remembers teaching Baldur the use of weapon after weapon and later, once Thor had himself begin making war, recounting to him stories of battles waged, promising the boy he, too, would have his turn on the fields of glory.

Loki ever tasked himself with educating Baldur in those things Thor had no patience for – reading and the arts. Baldur preferred him to any of his tutors. Thor put no stock in intellectual pastimes himself but it was incumbent of a man to have some familiarity with them. Never was it imagined, neither by his brothers nor his father, that Baldur be exposed to seiðr – as was only right – and so Loki remained a fit teacher for all else.

Now Baldur lies still, his charred and blistered skin exposed to the air. His broken body was not his death except that it assured his immobility. His stunning face, enjoyed by so many but never bragged of by the boy except in teasing his brothers, is disfigured almost beyond recognition.

_"I will never be a king," Baldur said, smiling his guileless smile, "but the Norns gave me the best face among us in compensation for my poor prospects."_

_"I cede you are a paragon of masculine beauty," Loki retorted in his dry way, eyes rolling and his fingernails given vain, careful study. "I will settle for having the skill and imagination to be excellent above other women. As for Thor's part, he is too preoccupied with breaking heads to know what to do with himself if he_ was _so fair featured."_

"Let us take him home, and build for him his pyre," Sif urges gently.

With the help of the others Baldur's destroyed body is gathered into Thor's arms. Thor will never forget the way his brother's flesh, roasted soft, tears with that jostling.


	6. Chapter 6

**(Now: Asgard)**

Odin's vault, traditionally a shadowy refuge for the artifacts under the Raven God's protection, is lit today by 'spotlight' standing upon its polished stone floors illuminating the vault's central pedestal and its environs many times brighter than the light from the wall which hides the vault's freshly-forged Destroyer, its capabilities yet untried. The flecks of quartz within the vault walls shine brilliantly under the spotlight's hot white light.

It took a matter of days for the vault to be modified to power this and other human equipment. Æsir craftsmen converted the magic running within its walls into the electricity the human devices hunger for through runework.

Sif carries a burden of unknown purpose upon her right shoulder. It is so light to her she would not be inconvenienced by it were it less misshapen. It is large and unwieldy and has small, mysterious protrusions that must at all costs not be damaged. Jane referred to it as a 'physical property measurement system,' an esoteric combination of familiar words that fails to communicate anything to Sif.

Jane Foster sits under the illumination of the spotlight, dressed all in white in a simple shift and trousers. Before she began working she piled and pinned up her hair and hid it beneath a fabric cap that fits down over her ears. So clad, she is almost as bright as the gleam from the walls.

"Just set it down there, I’ll plug everything in when I’m done here," she says, pointing to an empty space feet away from her.

Lady Sif follows Jane’s instruction, heaving the great piece of machinery off her shoulder and setting it down carefully close to the central column that bears the Tesseract.

"Is there any further lifting to be done?" Sif asks.

"This is all I need for right now. I wasn’t able to bring every piece of equipment I might have wanted to. Some of it was built into my lab on Earth; but I’m positive I can jury rig this into what I need."

Sif keeps an eye on the second human woman, the one walking the length of the vault, stopping before each artifact for close inspection. She does not worry that Darcy will interfere with the artifacts, but is instead fascinated by the complete change in demeanor affected in Darcy now that the three of them are alone. Here in the vault she is an eager child, while above in Glaðsheimr proper she could have been mistaken for a lady of the Æsir.

_Agent Darcy Lewis kneels at the foot of the high staircase that leads to Odin’s golden throne. Although dressed in the costume of her native people, her practiced poise is exquisite. Sif is privy to the fact that upon her arrival the woman apprehended Fandral and asked for instruction. Fandral never turns down a request from a woman save for extremely urgent business, and that Darcy could intuit when Fandral so boasts before and fawns over any ladies in his presence._

_"Allfather, delight of Frigga, we few are forever in your debt for the sanctuary you have offered us," the young woman says, as confident in her words as if she had all her life lived in Asgard and was no stranger to kings. "Gifts we have brought you from our homeland in gratitude for your hospitality,"_

_The other humans in her company kneel awkwardly, casting glances at each other and uncertainly adjusting their posture to attempt to, as a unit, match._

_"We thank you child, you are welcome in Asgard," Frigga says from upon the stairs. She motions for Darcy to rise and with the same gesture for the honor guard to receive first the boxed gift from Darcy’s hands, then those of various sizes from the entourage behind her. "Who is it we have the honor of receiving?"_

_"Agent Darcy Lewis of SHIELD," Darcy says, then proceeds to introduce each human in turn. Sif doesn’t understand every title. There are "physicists," "biologists," an "imam," a "professor of world literature," two "cognitive neuroscientists," "anthropologists," three "generals," and others whose functions are equally mysterious._

_Over the course of the introduction Sif gathers the purpose behind this eclectic selection. There are no rulers of state within the flock. The rulers of states have remained upon Earth. In place of them, these refugees represent of the scope of human knowledge and arts._

_Sif reflects on Thor’s great passion for humanity. It hurts her heart to imagine that this race of the curious and innovative faces an uncertain future._

When the humans arrived in Asgard, the threat to their world had not seemed so dire as now. Now Heimdall speaks of all the forces of Múspellsheimr arrayed against Earth’s dying people. It grieves Sif to have vowed to remain in Asgard while Thor and Loki do battle with Asgard’s ancient enemies, but she, Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg have been charged with vigilance over the Tesseract no matter whatever other peril.

They take watch in turns, seeing little of each other as they steal their sleep and train their bodies at different hours.

"If I am not disturbing you, what is the purpose of these machines?" Sif asks, watching Jane as she deconstructs one of her many contraptions, laying its pieces out across the mat she spread over the vault floor.

"I have all of Erik’s notes from the day before Loki attacked earth and his notes and account from afterward," Jane says, fingers still working diligently. "He described the Tesseract as ‘behaving’, ‘searching’, ‘knowing’, and as ‘exploring’ his mind. He believes we’re dealing with a being and not a tool." She stops her work, looking up at the radiant blue cube and the ebb and flow of the energies swimming inside it.

"He thinks that Loki could communicate with her, but could never control her directly – except when he expended a ton of energy to open the portal to Earth," Jane goes on. "I don’t know where Loki – well, Thanos – got that staff, but it probably wasn’t from contact with the Tesseract. Common sense says if he’d ever had contact with the Tesseract he wouldn’t be chasing it down now. Erik’s hypothesis is that if we can figure even a little of this out, then we can talk to the Tesseract. If we’re going to war over it, then it would be nice to have it on our side."

"And Erik remains upon Earth?"

Jane hesitates, although her eyes travel only her equipment.

"He had been… doing a lot of traveling, before the plague took off. He wouldn't risk coming with me. He stayed in Virginia."

"I am sorry, Jane," Sif says softly. She does not know Erik's exact relationship to Jane, but they seemed then and now to be close.

"Soooo, if it's a little square person why don’t we just talk to it?" Darcy has approached them from behind. She walks wide around Jane’s equipment to stand face to face with the levitating cube. "Hi, Tesseract!"

Jane turns her penetrating gaze on Darcy. She is silent in thought and Darcy is occupied waving at the cube, smiling a smile of greeting. Finally, Jane says:

"That might be worth a try and you are… _uniquely_ equipped not to care that you’ll look like an idiot doing it."

Darcy flashes the grin at her friend and cups a hand behind her ear in Jane's direction.

"All I hear is that I’m unique."

Sif mimics Darcy’s careful dance around Jane’s equipment and comes to stand behind the pedestal. Intent upon the glowing cube full of endlessly shifting blues, she takes a deep breath, trying to expand her thoughts outwards but truthfully knowing nothing of such magic.

"Hail. I am Sif, of Asgard, born of the Æsir. We intend to keep you safe in this chamber, and I am here to protect you."

"If you want to talk maybe you could, um, change colors?" Darcy prompts optimistically.

Sif attends the cube but sees no change in it.

"Mayhap the only color it knows is blue," she says.

Darcy pouts at the artifact, but leans in to peer closer.

"In that case it wouldn’t even know it’s blue. Poor color blind little cube."

Jane has returned to her small bits of metal.

"Guys, I need this space and we can't risk building up static shock from people moving around. Maybe you can try talking to the cube later when my potentially irreplaceable components aren’t lying on the ground exposed?"

"Jane’s sort of antisocial," Darcy apologizes, pulling a face before she retreats. Sif retreats after her.

"I know who I need to talk to about this. Odin," Jane says. "What are the chances I can interview Odin?" 

It’s unclear from her behavior which woman she’s addressing; she is hard at work organizing her components into different groups.

Darcy cringes.

"Er, I don’t know if people _interview_ Odin."

"If I understand the word correctly, you are asking to hold conference with Odin or seek a private audience," Sif interpolates.

"That’s the one," Jane says, smiling at Sif, animated and charming when she's not engrossed with her science.

"I think it best Darcy approach Frigga on your behalf. The Allfather is known to give private council to those who seek him out, but in this case you were the lover of his eldest son and it would not be wholly inappropriate to make a personal, more familial request. With Darcy’s pardon, having your ‘servant’ make the request will confer appropriate formality."

"No hard feelings here," Darcy says. "She’s gotten almost three years of slave labor out of me. Plus, Sif’s right. I’ll do the kneeling and ring kissing with Frigga. You’re not really cut out for that." 

Jane hears them out, and then expression crumbles, her fair features overtaken by unguarded misery. Darcy’s expression is one of compassion. Sif understands the human’s pain. She lowers herself to the vault’s glossy floor, sitting level with Jane, although far from her.

"In my youth both brothers were in different ways dear to me, but Thor I loved," she quietly confesses. "For him to love you as he loves you – not as a brother in arms – pained my heart, but not so grievously as when Loki laid his claim."

Jane swallows, damp breath betraying the possibility of tears, but ultimately she does not cry. She smiles a shaky smile without looking Sif's way.

"Is he happy with Loki? Loki must not be too bad, if you're his friend."

Sif masters her tone.

"I cannot speak my mind on it. They are my sword brothers and it is not my place to share knowledge that has come or been revealed to me as one they count a counsel giver."

She wonders what she would tell Jane if she _were_ to speak freely. That Loki is vain and greedy and his sanity crippled? That she has seen little of Thor since Loki seduced him, for Loki absconded with him to Freyja’s palace? That she has no doubt that Loki seduced him? Thor would never himself conceive of such a partnership. That those times when the two of them have visited Asgard, since, Thor seems single-mindedly preoccupied with his oft-jealous younger brother and that she fears he is falling prisoner to Loki’s fits both of madness and of ego?

She would say, as well, that Loki is the voice and the cleverest mind of their band and a boon in combat for he does not engross himself with bloodlust but attends all. She would say that for those short times in which his many lovers across the years have enjoyed being the sole object of Loki’s attention his riveting charisma engrossed them and their satisfaction was complete. She would say that Loki has always made and makes Thor smile in a way no other can achieve, that they love with a rare passion and that they are radiant together when in harmony. 

She will say none of it, and hopes that Jane understands.

Jane says "Oh," and she continues on with her work.

**(The Helicarrier)**

Natasha Romanova's elbows rest on the gleaming black conference table, fingers folded together.

"I should have been out there," she says. Her inflection is guiltless; for Natasha, it's fact. By now both the CDC and WHO worked over of the building she extracted her prisoner from and called it clean. Daily dialysis searching for pox in her blood has cleared her of viral infection. 

"There is no battle in which I would be else but honored to fight beside you, but little difference it would have made," Thor says. After three days of fighting, even he is bandaged and burned. "Múspellsheimr has risen to consume the Earth. Their people have not spilled from their kingdom in these numbers in seven thousand years."

Thor is mired in thoughts of past conflicts with raiding fire Jötnar, both the single worst of those and those which were for him less tragic. He has heard tell they were not so fierce before Surtr became king. Malevolent and unrelenting, that Jötunn has outmatched Laufey for ambition throughout Thor's life.

"What about you, Killjoy McGenocide. Does this get your rocks off?" Tony asks pointedly of the Hydra agent seated with excellent posture at the conference table among them. Thor doesn't completely understand what Tony is asking, but understands enough.

"Every step Hydra has taken has been to secure the future of humanity," the man says. "There is no question. I am a man without a doubt."

"A cultist usually is," Fury points out.

The man from Hydra shakes his head, still holding it high. He is unbowed by Fury's displeasure with him; Thor has witnessed few humans to be equally enduring.

"No. We will contact the Red Skull, you and I, and if it is in his power I believe he will aid SHIELD against this threat."

Arms folded across his chest, Fury looks to Steve Rogers. The captain spends a moment evaluating the Hydra agent, but when he speaks he speaks to Fury.

"—it's worth a shot. Red Skull's philosophy is warped but evidence says he planned for the human race to survive," Steve says.

"We need a long term strategy _now_. Just getting back in there and slugging it out's not gonna disappear that army," Rhodes says.

"It is simple," Loki says, her voice cutting through the conversation with authority. A stoic resolution unfamiliar to Thor accentuates her fine, noble features and carriage. "With the Asgardian army preoccupied with self-defense, it falls to me to take Jötunheimr as its rightful king. The frost Jötnar under my leadership will lend Earth their aid."

Thor is stunned to silence. He stares at his sister with wide eyes, unable to either condone or critique.

Never did he anticipate such words from Loki's mouth.

"Exactly what are the chances of that succeeding?" Fury asks, immune to emotional effect.

For a heartbeat Thor is appalled to sit in a room of mere humans who do not in the slightest grasp the implications of what Loki proposes.

"I am the progeny of Laufey, king of the Jötnar in a long line of kings, adopted by Odin, Allfather, in the aftermath of war," Loki says without pride, voice hard. "Laufey later died by my hand. I am unequivocally the rightful ruler of Jötunheimr. Some arrogant Jötunn may be seated on my throne demanding the supplication of our breed, but that pretender will be destroyed when I return to the land of my birth."

Thor finds his voice, surprising the others, save Loki, with the vehemence from which it bursts from him.

"I must accompany you. The reaction of the Jötnar to such an intercession will be violent."

Loki's face splits into a grin. She laughs as if disbelieving Thor's words.

"Brother mine, the intercession _will_ be violent. Think you for a moment Jötunheimr should accept a ruler diminished beneath an Áss's thumb? Let it be enough that I was raised in a far country and my ways are not theirs. I will wield it against them as a fount of strength in the same way I slayed my unwitting progenitor. Speak not of accompanying me. Your beloved Earth needs you. I will sit out for wisdom from the spirits and then bid Heimdall transport me to that ugly piece of ice. There is no part for you to play but for you to place your faith in me."

Thor shuts his mouth before words born of apprehension that would insult Loki's power and prowess spring unbidden from the torment that wracks his chest. He composes himself beneath the gazes of all at the table.

"…you have it," he swears. 

Steve shifts in his chair, looking between the siblings.

"These aren't my politics, but are these fire and frost 'Jötnar' related to each other or is there something I'm missing?" Steve asks.

"Early in the formation of the world, the first being, who was thought alone, decomposed into Ymir and Múspell – the great cold and great furnace," Loki explains in a skald's lilting cadence. "They were less gods than the first thoughts of god. Other worlds, increasingly complex, followed in their wake." She directs their attention to the windows of the bridge with a sweeping gesture. "We are gathered today in Midgard, the vast crown of the cosmic tree." She folds her hands in her lap. "The many races across its cosmos lack the purity of composition and of purpose that Devourers are famous for, but I am living proof that that is all dull, primeval habit. The frost Jötnar will be enraged the fire Jötnar mean to succeed in overrunning Earth where, in what to you is ancient history, their race recently failed. Binding them to me will demand effort, but success is highly plausible. "

"Wow. This all sounds completely retarded – but then there's that Devourer army making fast work of everything we have to throw at it," Tony says. Thor does not turn anger with his flippancy upon him, but that is a near thing.

"For a creature of awesome magical power you're pathetically uncomprehending of its cosmic implications," Loki drawls coolly.

Tony scowls.

"Say what?"

"I'll catch you up later," Clint says.

"So, Plan B is Loki goes and finds an army while we fly the Hulk in, lick our wounds and get back to supporting the ground forces in Argentina," Rhodes says.

"It's the only plan going. And apparently Red Skull gets a dressing down. That's Fury's department," Natasha says.

"Born and raised for it," Fury agrees.

"Two days to bring in Bruce and heal up and then we hit the ground for another seventy-two," Steve orders. "Disinfect those wounds, get to your quarters and sleep like your life depends on it."

Thor returns as bidden to the quarters he shares with Loki, but it is difficult to imagine finding sleep. When the door closes behind them he draws Loki into his arms, letting his kisses speak not of fear but of praise. Would only that he had sacrifices to lay at her feet to strengthen her for the trials she proposes to endure.

"Undress me," she says.

Thor removes each glove, her belt and one boot after the other. He peels from her body the battle uniform clinging close to her skin. He worships her skin with his mouth as the fabric retreats, sucking and licking at her breast, at the small bowl of her belly button, down the flesh of one curvaceous thigh. 

Thor rises on his knees, grasping her soft buttocks and nibbling and lapping and the bone of her hip. It once astounded him that his attraction toward Loki remained unchanged regardless of the flesh Loki wears. That he would pour all his passion onto this softer vessel with her buoyant black curls astonishes him no longer. Her alert, mischievous, enraptured gaze remains unchanged.

Loki exhales, basking in love but so, also, the devotion of fraternity. She places a hand upon his head, stroking his sweat and grit matted hair.

"You should bathe, brother. Your wounds deserve care, and it is the time for my communion with the astral. I bid you remember disturbances to my body bruise the connection of body and spirit. Later, we may speak of this to which I endeavor."

Thor draws back, lifting his eyes to Loki's, drunk upon the scent of her body: the scent of woman, cold water and the acrid smell of volcanic ash. The blue cast of the Hellicarrier's lights has colored her gaze the same electric blue of the lightning Thor calls from the skies.

He shudders to think of his sister's skin frosted over and rises reluctantly, taking her hand between his for a silent moment. He leaves her as she bid to cleanse himself of the exertion of days and nights of combat.

**(The Astral Realm)**

Loki walks as a man, but not as a Jötunn, clad in an Áss's princely raiment, surveying the throne room of Jötunheimr's crown fortress with fresh eyes. Snowfall drifts on the breeze through the high, open windows. The columns which bolster the ceiling glitter in the white light of day.

"Mephisto!" he calls. "Devil, I wish for words."

This time, he mounts the five stairs. Today, he sits enthroned, the stone back of his ancestors' chair hard behind his shoulders. If a king the devil wishes to make of him, then a king the devil will attend.

He waits.

Mephisto appears enshrouded by masculine beauty. His skin remains richest saffron and his ears like a bat's, but many of his features have been tamed. He is civilized in his appearance, boasting groomed sideburns and yet-erect but kempt hair. His brows are arched but not uneven, his nose aquiline, lips shaped like lips and chin without elongation, a moustache of fine black hairs upon his upper lip and a beard much akin to Fandral's upon his chin. His yellow eyes show small black pupils. He is clad in no mockery of Asgardian armament but in the popular fashion of Asgard with sweeping cape, all in red, and all the metal red gold.

"Fashioned to please now that you've come looking for handouts," Loki taunts with an evil smile. It delights him to apprehend no scruples burdening the devil. Loki himself is not unfamiliar to dressing below his station to lure in a prospect.

"Doing business requires the same aestheticism and deft skill as dancing or ruling. For today's small drama, we obscure our natures in like costume," Mephisto agrees.

Loki sits unmoved, bold smile hungry.

"You will retrieve for me the Casket of Ancient Winters by whatever artifice the task demands."

Delight spreads across Mephisto's infernal features. An excitement and hunger mirroring Loki's betrays itself in the widening of his eyes.

"The little box full of Ymir's power. A surmountable task."

Loki's heart thrills with the mounting danger, but his face remains unchanged.

"And your wage?" he prompts. "My soul has seen unpleasant mileage in the past handful of years."

Mephisto cackles. He mounts the steps to the dais, standing above the Jötunn. Loki is sure of his own need and feels, in place of intimidation, a clawing desire for absolute victory at his task. Victory here is a matter of will unbowed. A mistake – a misstep – and the devil will have him forever bound to Hell. A slip at roleplay and Loki will be not king but toy instead.

"May I sit?" Mephisto asks. He sits without waiting for comment, sinking into Loki's open lap, throwing a leg over the stone arm of the great chair, sliding an arm over the Jötunn's shoulder, tilting his head to speak near his ear, his smile smug and covetous.

"We must at any cost save the Earth," the devil states with such powerful sincerity that the startled Loki flinches back, disbelieving. Mephisto licks his lips and smiles again. "—more exactly, the humans. The earth is useless without the humans."

"What is the Earth to you?" Loki asks, studying the creature for signs of deceit. He revolts at the devil's insinuation into his private space, but only in his mind.

"Humans' and Asgardians' tiny lives will all burn out and Mephisto endure until the last gasp of this universe," Mephisto says in a low voice as if imparting an intimate secret, a fingertip tracing the cusp of Loki's ear. "Human souls are volatile but blaze like newborn stars. Once you carve a domain in Hell, little one, you secure and expand it by burning up all those newborn stars to feed you." He rubs Loki's earlobe between the tips of a thumb and forefinger, barely shy of scorching hot. "I've destroyed a hundred contenders for the lion's share of the rights to souls born on Earth. I need living humans that ripen for harvest. If the human race is extinguished, Hell goes to war. I'll have to eviscerate my greatest rivals to take over other principalities. Inconvenient."

Loki cannot hide his hastened breath and the heart within him that beats in double time. Intimidation entwines with anticipation, although both he would deny. He would come to fear this devil worse than Thanos if damned to an eternity of abuse, yet the challenge of wielding wits as weapons and in a conflict where desires pose the greatest dangers ignites a mania within him.

"If your passion for Earth is so sincere, cannot a being as ancient as you triumph over a stripling upstart like Thanos? As for myself, I am but a speck of dust in his eye."

To confess himself a speck of dust to Thanos, so too does Loki confess himself a speck of dust to Mephisto. Undisguised pleasure brightens Mephisto's features.

They soon cloud over with a frown.

"As long as he does not possess the Tesseract, then in the Astral Realm I would consume Thanos whole as if he were a crippled fawn and I a pack of wolves. In the Material, my power, while formidable, is uncertainly matched against his. Unless… I have a champion. Then from my seat in Hell may I attack in force."

"Me?" Loki asks slowly as Mephisto's burning fingers trail down his bare neck.

Mephisto is repulsed, nose wrinkling and touch disappearing.

"Useless. Your breed is of the first raw physical stuff of the universe. What little individuality in you imitated a soul is now ugly wreckage." He presses the index finger of the arm not slung over Loki's shoulders to Loki's lower lip, shushing him while he thinks. "Unfortunately time is too pressing for me to haggle you down to handing over Thor, as unthinkably powerful as he would become with my augmentation. We'll have to settle for the second purest spirit on hand."

Mephisto drops his hand, laying it upon Loki's breast and smiling with all the evil Loki's first smile exuded.

"If you seduce for me Captain America, the Cask of Ancient Winters is yours. The Cask is in the clutches of the Dark Elves and _their_ guard I can eviscerate as if lambs." 

The devil makes vague gesticulations in the frigid air.

"In the meantime, I'll be coddling the precious ego of Thanos Rex. My position would be compromised if I advised you upon his current machinations. I am the only one privy to them, although I know not how much else he hides." He sniffs in disdain. "You may have espied that he believes he's in contact with the being of legend called Mistress Death. The better odds are that the Titan is unrelentingly insane."

Willing fearlessness, Loki leans closer to the languorous but ravenous devil, eyes gone carnelian to match Mephisto's foul yellow. He sees the means to accomplish the task set before him lie within his power. His voice is low and unwavering:

"Captain America is as good as yours."

Mephisto's lips scorch his own; frost blue ripples across Loki's skin in defense. The fingers of the hand that now clutches the back of Loki's head have elongated into razor-tipped claws. Blood rises from the wounded scalp beneath Loki's black hair.

Loki knows something of compulsory deals from which reneging is a soul-crippling battle, but as Hellfire flickers on the tongue entwined with his own he understands while he burns that the Lady Freyja, great among Æsir and Vanir, could teach him nothing to spare him Hell should he to fail to make good on his word.

"I do wonder if you comprehend what it will take to win Jötunheimr," the devil murmurs, lips brushing lips. "…but it's early to speak of that."

**(The Helicarrier)**

Director Fury watches the Hydra agent's fingers tapping across his office keyboard, his hand on his Smith & Wesson M&P in case the man makes a fast move. The viewscreen above his desk glows a faint, electric blue, but is receiving no signal from the other end.

"Identify yourself," a voice says over the speakers.

"Callum Harris. Eight-three-five-yoke-king-six-easy-two-two."

Quiet on the other end. Then, coldly:

"You've been compromised, agent."

"Yes sir," Harris says. "I'm standing with Director Nick Fury of SHIELD. He seeks an audience with the Red Skull to confer on the demons taking advantage of the _Variola_ to wage war on Earth."

"Hold," the voice replies.

Silence reigns in Fury's office. Fury stands stalwart while he waits, his eye on Harris and his hand still resting against his gun. He refuses his natural urge to flinch when the viewscreen flickers to life. The nose-less man before him is the raw red of exposed muscle and taut red skin thinly covers the bones of his skull. Fury has seen photographs, but those were black and white surveillance images from the war. They did not reveal the horror of the man when animated.

"Nicholas Fury. I'm to understand you're the modern director of the Strategic Scientific Reserve. I commend your organization for enduring as long as Hydra. I underestimated the scope of its ambitions."

"Respect where respect is due: We didn't expect Hydra to be so tenacious either. Question one: Do you have a vaccine for this strain of smallpox?"

The Red Skull scowls and frowns.

"There is no vaccine. I accepted this Trojan horse from Thanos having in the course of my long journeys through the stars come to know those who had been richly rewarded by that same Titan."

The Red Skull makes a dismissive gesture. His gaze dissects Fury.

"Earth's greatest hope is to proliferate this strain of _Variola_ across all continents, turning men into supermen equal to these demons' challenge."

"Let's say yes, we did that," Fury tries out. "The virus is already on the way to laying low the population of Earth for weeks. We move up that timetable? By the time the survivors recovered, our planet would be wiped out by demons. Even when the survivors are fighting fit, how do you expect to mold an army out of a scattered population that's lost their families, their partners, their friends and the entire infrastructure of their governments? Don't feed me bullshit, Schmidt. I need to know what Hydra is ready to do for Earth today."

Red Skull stares him down until it is obvious to the old metahuman that Fury will not concede an inch. Fury can tell that by holding his temper he's accrued an allowance of respect.

"Hydra is equipped with advanced weaponry and capable of mobilizing with haste. The scions of Hydra have already endured the transformation and will be a match for any demon. Accordingly, we will deploy only our supermen, or the agents who have yet to come in contact with the trial."

"You have me believing you could almost pass for sane," Fury says. "It's your lucky day because I don't care about your crimes, or your god complex, or anything involving _Variola_ besides containing the infection. SHIELD needs Hydra in the field with everybody else able to lift a gun against this. You transmit me your deployment schedule and I'll put it in the hands of whoever needs to know not to shoot you. You cross me, and you're going to find out my reach is already superhuman – no alien virus required."

Fury suspects that Red Skull benefits from his severe reduction in facial muscles when maintaining a composed façade.

"We have an understanding, Director Fury," he says. "Today my foremost concern is undoing Thanos, my betrayer."

Fury's nod is his only communicative gesture, face stoic and arms folded behind is back.

"I have other calls to make, 'Red Skull.' Just get your men on the ground."

\----

Loki awakens beneath the sheets which conceal her from head to feet. She can hear Thor's slumber-slow breathing across the floor upon the other bottom bunk.

She is naked beneath her shroud and takes the time to transform herself, summoning her energies, her body slowly elongating, her breasts hardening to pectoral muscles, her genitals everting. 

Loki removes the sheet under which he performed his sitting out without a high seat. He looks upon Thor's naked, unconscious body. His older brother rests peacefully, and Loki has a task Thor would not condone for him to perform. The God of Mischief dresses sparingly so as not unduly to rouse Thor, who is used to his moving about their bedroom but might stir and ask questions if buckles were buckled.

In place of full dress he shrouds himself in the illusion of it. It will serve for impressing a human.

Steel door after steel door stands identical except for the number painted above it, aesthetics so abandoned so completely to to efficiency as to grate on Æsir tastes. Loki knows where Captain America is quartered and presses the button beside the door fashioned to alert the occupant of bedroom that a visitor awaits outside.

Rogers, dressed in loose pants and a tight shirt of cotton, wounds plastered in bandages, is surprised and confused to see him, brow knitting in some apish attempt to discern Loki's motivations. Loki would not discount him as stupid, but Rogers is simple and authentic, qualities equally desirable in a pawn.

"May I come in?" Loki asks sweetly. "We must discuss matters secret from the human race."

Rogers presses his lips together but he steps aside for Loki to enter.

"They have microphones everywhere," he points out.

Loki glances toward the camera in the corner of the room, distinctly unimpressed.

"Only you and I can hear each other. SHIELD's devices have in the past proven susceptible to my power. Illusions create electrical interference. They have no way of knowing I left my quarters."

Steve's brow flattens and his jaw tightens.

"You _do_ know that makes me even less interested in what you could have to say than before?"

Loki laughs, pulling the one chair back from the desk in the captain's small, duel bedroom and office. Turning it around to face outward, he takes his seat upon it. A companionable, compassionate smile smoothes his features. He has always delighted in putting on pretense.

"I have word from a potential ally who can turn the tides of this war. He is not flesh but spirit; it impedes his direct influence on Earth. To have an effect upon the material realm of the magnitude necessary to repel the forces of Múspellsheimr and do battle with Thanos, he would need a vessel."

Steve sits on the edge of his bunk, listening but pre-judging. The eyes beneath his blonde brows are as accusative as if Loki had torn a helpless animal in two before him.

"Exactly what kind of 'spirit' are you talking about?"

"You might call him a devil, and you'd be right," Loki says; better Steve react while under his guidance than later. "He is old. Almost as old as time."

"Satan."

How distinctly unimpressed Loki is reflects in the minute alteration of his expression and his body language, voice dry and disparaging:

" _No_. He goes around by Mephisto, but in my understanding there are thousands of devils and they change names, habits and alliances liberally."

Steve remains skeptical at first. His expression changes as he consents to the fact that Loki knows these things better than he would, but he remains wary. Loki tastes on the air that human curiosity that has the best of Steve.

"I know I shouldn't, but I'm going to take you at face value," Steve says. "Your devil friend – why would he come to Earth's aid?"

Asgard's prince flourishes beneath the opportunity, becoming more enthusiastically animated than he would ever with one of human stock outside of such theater. 

"Humans are agents of chaos with weak self-control. They are as wont to side with devils as with… Well, no one has ever seen an angel as such," he says. "Go to your Christian temple and pray until your knees give out but there will be no heavenly savior. No Jesus will appear to grant you the strength to annihilate the fire Jötnar. I tarried in Scandinavia as Christianity overran those lands. The heathens who called upon Loki could find succor until the end; their Jesus I have never witnessed do work." 

Steve scoffs, eyes resting on the Bible in his room and then on Loki, again.

"You don't understand Christianity. Jesus doesn't come down and walk around fixing your problems. He died so that we—so that humans, at least, could go to God after death. To Heaven. You're making it very clear there are alternatives to that."

Loki affects apology.

"You have me," he confesses. "Mephisto builds his power by the acquisition of souls. It seems – or at least he claims – that it is infecting a certain purity of spirit that best amplifies his infernal might. Yet that by itself is not enough for a devil to survive. Without worlds rich in souls that turn willingly to Hell, devils would wither to dust. He claims for that reason he wishes for Earth to persist. It is _impossible_ to profit from an extinct species. Should humanity perish, there will be no more souls for your God to win, either – only a rock in space, lucky if it still contains life at all."

Steve's features contract with pain. He is visibly repulsed, but resignation accompanies his disgust.

"Why me, Loki?"

Loki is relieved that Steve is not blind but is, as usefully as if he were blind, over-ardent. He may not be gullible, but he feels responsibility too keenly. Loki is too wrapped up in the game to pity him. 

"You are emblematic of purity," he pursues. "Your patriotism burns as an uncorrupted flame. In you could Mephisto's astral strength be channeled freely and in you be forged a great knight whose power would make the Hulk's appear trivial in comparison. You will liberate Earth and, in return, when the conflict recedes, follow Mephisto to Hell where your mighty soul will be as coveted as a rare gem within his kingdom. "

Externally, at least, Steve remains cold to the idea.

"What would Thor say if I asked him about this?"

Loki drops a flirtatious wink, smirking all the while.

"If you got him to understand the reality of devils? Not to do it. That nothing's worth your soul. I would be taken to task for keeping the worst breed of company."

He leaves Steve Rogers without convincing him. These things must have their time and take root independent of stimuli until ultimately the victim believes he innovated his fate of his own accord.

Twelve steps from Steve Rogers' door, spiritual agony takes him.

His beloved mother chose true not to promise faith in him.

Loki shuts his eyes to see her smile and her adoration. He marvels that he would depart in her good graces when in the weft and weave she saw devils in his fate. 

If this be the first fatal step down the path she hated, then the Tesseract is nowhere within reach.

\----

Loki's mouth still burns. A stop in the latrine to study himself in the polished metal of the mirror shows no physical damage. He returns to Thor, shedding his few garments and kneeling on the floor beside the bunk.

"Thor," he whispers, feeling like a child creeping into his older brother's bed after awakening from a nightmare.

He cannot discern Thor's garbled response, but Thor opens his eyes; they are keen in the first moment, appraising Loki for any immediate need or injury, and then they lapse shut and blink open again drowsily with fatigued reluctance as Thor sinks back toward slumber.

"Should I make room?" he asks.

Loki doesn't answer except to lean forward, kissing him sideways. Thor's beard scraps his soft inner lips but neither soothes nor exacerbates the pain of skin burned raw.

"I'm leaving. I know not how long. Will you still wish to call me 'brother' or 'beloved' in the form in which I return?" Loki asks, miserable with it all. The high has long abated and in its egress emptied him.

One of Thor's large hands claps the top of Loki's head. Loki observes by the subtle movements of his eyes under the emergency lights that Thor is memorizing his face, centimeter by centimeter.

"You could reveal yourself, tonight, and later it be no surprise to me," Thor coaxes, voice sleep-roughened.

"No," Loki says, but he does not draw back. Thor leans forward now to be the one to kiss.

Tears he cannot blink away away sting at Loki's eyes.

Thor slips off the bunk, sliding from underneath the covers and lowering himself to the floor a knee at a time, letting his hands rest intimate places in solidarity. Loki's heart rises, excitement and a flare of adoration chasing aside the darker and lonelier emotions haunting him. Thor looks on him with compassion, in recently won sensitivity, his forehead riddled with concern above his raised brows and his eyes soft. A permissive nod from Loki and his protective concern disappears into purpose.

He is firm with his lover, the hand on Loki's buttock and the hand that clasps Loki by the nape of the neck pulling Loki against his own warm body, his next kiss unrelenting until Loki cedes the depths of his mouth. The pain grows not at touch, but is instead fiercer when Loki moves. Thor's tongue cannot soothe the agony imparted by Mephisto, but Loki gladly engages despite the pain to be secure in his older brother's hands, as soothed as when in a distant past he burrowed underneath covers and balled his tiny fists in Thor's tunic.

_"I'll be king, and you'll be my queen," Thor used to say as a child, when equality between them seemed as simple as that, before they learned of boys and girls and men and women and the purposes of marriage._

_Soothing away Loki's night terrors, in those childhood times he would say with great self-importance: "You impeach my honor. You're to be my queen. There is nothing my queen has to fear."_

_Thor would leave the bed to retrieve the arm ring that was Loki's crown and place it askew on his brother's head. The matter settled, slumber would quickly receive them both._

Thor lays Loki out on the floor. He holds him captive beneath his greater weight, but Loki possess strength enough to support his brother's body. His palms slide up Thor's neck and over his stubbled neck and jaw; he combs his fingers through his brother's hair, still damp from his earlier shower, as Thor's lips glide against his own. 

The pain is dizzying. Loki rolls his hips against his lover's with abandon, his powerful body in liquid undulation making a case to Thor's cock that it supply him with distraction.

One broad hand trails slowly down his body, leaving the memory of body heat in its wake. It turns at Loki's lower abdomen, descending fingers first. Thor's palm travels heedless of the rocking of Loki's hips. He grasps Loki beneath one thigh and pushes that thigh up and to their side with a strength Loki would be taxed to fight.

Thor stops, concern on his features.

"You will not be oiled," he say. When Loki is eager and active and making demands, little comforts matter not compared to centuries at teaching his body total relaxation – spit on the palm of a hand meets all Loki requires, but it is late at night and they have been moving slowly upon the floor.

"This mood requires no such attentions," Loki says. Certainty sharpens his voice, his body eager for a burn to contest the one left by Mephisto.

Thor accepts the state of things, though if he knew Loki thought not of passionate abandon but instead, privately, of chaffed skin he would turn it into an argument.

Loki pulls his other thigh aside, drawing back his knee. His open hips serve as an irresistible snare. He is keen all on the many variations of the familiar expression Thor makes before he breaches him, centrally surrounding a narrowing of his brow; Thor looks upon him with such _eyes_ at the precipice, as if each encounter he must be certain down to his soul that Loki is fully committed to the trespasses of his cock.

To Loki's annoyance, just as Thor's expression becomes the most enticing Thor thinks twice and disappears from above him. Loki reaches down to grasp a handful of blonde hair before Thor escapes to where his tongue and fingers can go about softening the experience. Thor looks up Loki's body with narrowed eyes, and Loki glares a challenge of his own in return: "I have voiced my desires."

Thor relents, although suspicious. He climbs Loki's body to align their hips, bullying Loki's wider and a little higher with his touch and his own thighs so that the fleshy cheeks of Loki's ass part naturally. The brooding look about him betrays the resentment he nurses – less, Loki suspects, about being made raw himself than about risking harm to Loki's skin.

"Have I not from the first and so often desired to know your strength? Deny me not today," Loki coaxes, not kindly. Temper riled, Thor understands better than he would otherwise. Loki hisses as the weighty head of his paramour's erection penetrates the tight circle of muscle. By necessity and with the ease of habit it gives way, but when Thor has sunken deep Loki tightens around his lover's cock.

Set on satisfaction, Loki teases with an edge of danger: "Make your ancestors proud."

Thor's breath catches. A lascivious smile splits Loki's face. He gets exactly what he wants: Thor, in a pique, shifting his massive body until his knees have traction against the floor; a forearm slides beneath Loki's back – Thor's fingers pressing indentions against his skin. There will be no slipping away from the force of his hips and thighs.

The friction burns. It burns Loki harder than Thor, for Loki's skin is the skin stretched taut, but the heat and pain caused to Loki's vulnerable flesh hurts nothing like his mouth burns.

Three long, aggressive strokes force Loki's overwhelmed muscles to relinquish their grasp despite his rage for penance. He supplicates his brother with a throaty groan, vowing his surrender. Thor sighs with relief above him. His hips begin rocking rhythmically, cock embraced by forgiving skin. He kisses and suckles Loki's flesh, vowing _I love you_ s that kiss by kiss diminish the lovers' petty anger despite the testosterone in the cabin air.

Adrift in his own inner world, Loki savors the fullness invoked by Thor's engorged, blood-hot cock as it pumps in and out of his sore anus. His greedy moans promise Thor he is delivering satisfaction, though he might understand the passion gripping his lover.

Thor's fingertips dig deeper into Loki's skin as he drives in harder, desire swelling, forever obedient when Loki comes to him needing. Loki gasps, cleaving to Thor, back arching as his body spasms. The sound of flesh smacking flesh intensifies. Thor has mastered his temper and dutifully licks beads of sweat from Loki's bared neck.

Thor becomes enthusiastically vocal in turn, grunting and humming affirmation and encouragement. His adoration breathes clean air into the murk of Loki's self-loathing until the venom pooled beneath it, now exposed, begins to evaporate.

"Like a bull in rut," Loki mocks with rising spirits, his breathing increasingly wet and ragged. His nails dig against Thor's broad back, then relax.

"Like a bitch in heat," Thor rebuts in a sex-roughened voice. With a twinge of annoyance Loki slaps Thor's broad and muscular side. As a reprimand it's ineffectual. He is left to imagine himself as he now looks: head fallen back, legs drawn up permissively, Thor in his embrace and Thor's arm beneath him holding him fast while Thor himself drives against him, muscles in motion, blue light gleaming off the changing crests of Thor's sweat-damp, rippling skin. Amidst his imaginings and despite his pains, Loki's rigid cock foregrounds itself in his attention, Thor's abdomen stroking its smooth skin as he thrusts above it.

He begins to push a hand down between their hard bodies. Thor's fingers close around his wrist. He pulls it aside, pressing it against floor. Loki's eyes widen sightlessly; his entire body, possessed completely, thrills. Thor drags his teeth down Loki's chin. Whimpering eagerly, Loki capitulates, willing captive to his lover's pleasure.

Thor is like a furnace above him and Loki stiflingly hot. As their conjugation intensifies, he pants for air, dizzy with arousal and asphyxia. The sweat of Thor's skin comingles with his own, both atop and beneath him.

There is no scheming or demanding, now, and Loki's scorched lips are but an afterthought. The hand clenched around Loki's wrist denies him any avenue of escape. He wants for none. No dark avenue down which to slither away. No mental retreat to sequester him from the damp warmth of Thor breathing against his skin.

It's in the headiest moments of sexual exertion and at no other time that peace o'ertakes Loki's brilliant, wicked mind.

Loki is reduced to heaving lungs, masculine groans and frustrated arousal and Thor, in his mind, a tremendous machine with the single purpose of filling him.

Loki never used to be vocal in the bedroom, not with other lovers, but he's loud, now, cursing colorfully. Thor goes over the edge, driving into Loki's body with hard, arrhythmic thrusts. Loki whispers _Yes, yes, yes, yes_ into the air, knowing he'll have his turn and ready for it.

When his orgasm subsides, Thor relinquishes his grip on Loki's arm. Loki's hand forms a fist, and then relaxes. Thor kisses Loki deeply, imparting his abundance of devotion. His hand goes obediently to Loki's cock, rough palm courting Loki's taut skin. He urges Loki on with small flinches of his hips – friction on raw, lightly torn skin keeping the width to which Loki is spread at the fore of Loki's mind, provoking spikes of a hurt that cannot match but is so much more important than the pain on his lips.

Bliss shears away any world beyond Thor, Loki's awareness bound up in the hot grasp of Thor's hand and attention-demanding staccato of the cock buried inside him.

Another curse, a sigh and again the crush of lips against lips.

Loki has come and Thor has come and this within the same narrow window. There is no other time at which Loki is hungrier for affection. He pushes his hands into Thor's hair, clutching it into ropes and kissing him greedily. Thor, in return, is no longer the commanding bedfellow he became at Loki's demand. He carefully withdraws his cock and, wrapping both his arms protectively around his younger brother, rolls over onto his back upon the cabin floor. Now Loki's bare body is atop him. Loki takes his time, humping against the slick he left on both Thor's stomach and his own; biting and playfully growling at his captive.

"Did I call you a 'bitch'? For I meant a 'panther'," Thor says, running a hand down the small of Loki's back and affectionately trailing his fingertips back up it.

"Yes, you called me a 'bitch'," Loki says. His tone threatens revenge, but his fatigued satisfaction says he plans no such thing.

"You will allow me to find you salve?" Thor bids while Loki is so thoroughly pleased.

"I'll allow it," Loki concedes with a frown. He is in no position to argue that the hot ache of his anus _is_ the salve. He knows better than to brush Thor off; it is a small concession to suffer his brother making fathering gestures so they may best use the little time they have left to spend together.

Delight with Loki's acquiescence brightens Thor's eyes; Loki surrenders a meager but authentic smile. His hand is wandering the hills and valleys of Thor's tremendous, stone hard chest, playing with his lover's aroused nipples. 

Loki battles the paranoia that Thor will encounter Rogers as he goes to ask the human doctors for something to soothe the flesh. Thor's injuries from battle past are enough that Loki doubts they'll think at all of sexual misadventures when they gift him with the resource he seeks. His paranoia is of low quality but disquiets him during the waiting.

Thor returns to the room, looking pleased with himself for the small deception he managed. Relief rushes like torrent of water from a broken damn within Loki's chest. Loki is so elated to be free of fear he greets Thor with an unguarded smile; that, in turn, raises Thor's spirits higher.

"Now lean over the bunk," Thor commands responsibly, the tube of whatever he has returned with in hand.

Loki's smile grows wider and incredulous.

"It is solace to me that in all likelihood I have kept us invisible to the security measures these past days, for think of what naive humans would learn," he teases while complying, folding his arms on the bunk, deciding Thor's search for balm was a fine idea after all with his raised buttocks displaying Thor's good work. 

He cannot be completely certain he has obfuscated SHIELD's every measure, but he has confidence in his own prowess and a complete lack of concern over humans seeing him at lovemaking.

Loki delivers on a full throated groan as Thor's fingers, coated in some thick substance, press into his stretched and pained hole.

"Have you become a masochist?" Thor asks, the question careful.

"I was only in a temper," Loki says. He conscientiously fails to remind Thor that it is sadism which exhilarates him beyond control of his senses, as much because it conjures the specter of Thanos as for Thor's sake. He looses another sound of discomfort comingled with pleasure as Thor probes his sore anus. He shifts his knees against the floor to get a little more pressure from Thor's touch. "My thoughts plague me relentlessly, brother." He accentuates the familiar word, toying with the last of the fading aura of taboo. He wishes he could see Thor's face as his voice grows sultry: "You are my liberator in all ways."

Whatever his countenance shows, Thor loses the capacity for speech; Loki hears him draw two excited breaths – Loki has not such an ear that he knows in what parts they are of arousal or shame. Then, Thor calms himself and continues about his task.

There is no justification for his ministrations by now except Loki's needy moaning. With two fingers he traces the edge of that abused hole full circle. The muscles of Loki's lower back seize reflexively.

"We've resolved our lubrication troubles," Loki taunts.

" _You_ have already had your pick of the action," Thor says. He rises, setting the balm on the counter of the small sink in their room for four and rising to wash his hands with soap. Loki frowns over his shoulder but Thor's eyes are on Loki's and not the hips so alluringly raised. "Now there will be hugging."

Loki rolls his eyes. Thor takes a seat upon the bunk, propping the room's four pillows against the wall, leaning back against them so his head doesn't knock on the bunk above and looking at Loki with a jovial smile – exactly estimating his own robust charm. Loki takes a seat on the mattress and cautiously scoots over to Thor's side, ignoring the mess balm and come makes on the sheet and the complaints of his injured body, shooting a wary look at Thor that Thor might or might not deserve. Thor hangs an arm around him and Loki, conquered again, rests his head against his lover's shoulder and allows his tensions to pass. In their absence his body mourns its aches, old and fresh, at greater volume. Loki focuses on the welcome one.

"I would speak of better days, but I have yet to fully fathom how deep your resentment for me ran," Thor murmurs, attentive – extroverted. Loki works out, not intuitively but deductively, that since their arrival upon Earth Thor has stayed near to him and had few chances to speak about the trivial, boast and freely converse as he would with another audience. 

There is a tangible possibility they will never have the chance to speak upon years past again. Loki foresees how poorly the conversation is matched to hugging, when for him memories and emotions return entwined. In their recent past Thor has asked him again and again to instruct him in the ways he infuriated Loki. Loki has denied Thor that for months, sidestepping a clash of tempers.

He realizes in tandem that Thor will consider his honesty, though hurtful, a gift, and that he has no other means to prepare his lover to face a criminal and a creature that has exercised cruelty to wrest away power when they next meet.

"Before Volstagg – before Fandral and Sif and then Hogun – you were already a braggart, but you bragged only to me. When became striplings, I lost my brother. You grew up first. When I became a young man you expected me to join you at _everything_. How could I _not_ when you never stopped trying to get yourself killed?" Loki hears he has already raised his voice and halts to quiet himself and quell the vitriol rising in him. His mind rebels at the words which are coming. 

"I brought you disappointments, but they nary curbed your ego. If they curbed it at all then it was held in check only for a matter of weeks or months," he says, his jaw tight. "Yet father named _you_ heir. I was appalled that father would put a war monger upon the throne and I realized, then, that by undermining you in secret I had obscured the worst of your faults. After nights of wrestling with my thoughts, I cloaked myself in illusion and journeyed to Jötunheimr. I assured certain ambitious Jötnar that on the day of your coronation the vault of Asgard would be open to them."

"Loki," Thor says, voice sharp with both reprimand and disbelief. Loki knows Thor and that his brother with his new-won nobility thinks not of the Jötnar but the guards who perished.

Loki's fingers curl against Thor's abdomen; should his brother be clad he would cling to him. His heart thunders. He measures the possibility of Thor rebuking and rejecting him here, tonight, now that he's having the truth from him he so patiently waited to obtain. That Loki might deserve, but the prospect terrifies him.

"I saw you as father's favorite – minted of gold. I did not foresee your banishment, Thor. I thought at last that father should chastise you as I believed it vital to the throne that he chastise you; not that he would expel you," he says, voice growing quieter. "We went to Jötunheimr together to have your war. One of the brutes grasped my arm and father's spellcraft, but for a moment, dissolved. I grew certain, so certain, that father had never counted me his son and across all these years he had been feeding me at his table either because of the plans he had for me or from pity… "

_That,_ even at his moments of greatest paranoia and estrangement, Loki no longer fears. He saw Odin spoke truth at Mimir's well and that he, the second son, was the son raised to manhood in the image of his father. He now hides within him the unspeakable knowledge Odin Spear-shaker must fear himself as Loki fears himself, and so the throne passes to noble Thor. What Loki fears, now, too, is Mephisto's boast that the Raven God has never one-upped him. Has his father's mouth burned with this same agony in his long, sorcerous career? Loki does not doubt they've had dealings.

His voice hardens.

"Father fell into the Odinsleep and left me upon the throne in the midst of a war. My plans all made sense to me, then. Perfect sense. And when Sif worked her treason – for it _was_ treason – I responded as a king must," he says. "You told me, on Midgard, that I missed the truth of ruling, but a king chooses what is worth the sacrifice to preserve the realm entire. Until Sif's betrayal and however your morals paint it I meant to end the war between realms without a single Æsir casualty." His eyes are smarting again, his lips twisting against each other, old insults never forgotten and rarely forgiven: "You dared to call my slights _imagined_ after you yourself came to Asgard to commit high treason. You shattered the Bifrost beneath me. You've called it a time best left in the past, but you thought nothing of _deposing_ me! I treated you brutally but so, too, you me."

"My love," Thor whispers, distress thick in his own voice, kissing the top of Loki's head. "My love" he murmurs, again. "If I had understood these things before you are to leave my side…" His sudden, mournful sincerity as he grasps the shape of things diminishes Loki's outrage. Thor takes the cool hand resting on his stomach into his own, as if, were their positions different, he should kiss its knuckles. "You were my king, and Sif's king – the king of the Warriors Three. You came to me on Earth and I saw only the brother I loved and begged succor of you. To me, the act of destroying the Jötunn race had grown to appear heinous, but I set upon not my truant little brother but liege and ring-giver. How tarnished and blackened my honor – and for me to not see it."

"You had little outgrown your self-obsession, and temper ever interposes itself against your better judgment," Loki says, not in accusation but listing means of accounting for it. He wearies and cannot be so roused by past injustices to want to leave Thor's warm arms, tonight.

"I wish for us reconciliation," Thor says with a brief tightening of the arm around Loki in a hug, hand rubbing warmth into Loki's side.

Loki curls nearer beneath the soothing gesture, breathing in the masculine scent of Thor's showered but sexually expended body.

"When all this is over. Should we yet live. Should you yet stand me when you know all that I am…" Loki supposes, and then: "Until then, your prowess in our bed has done much for smoothing over past insult."

Thor meets Loki's change in tone with his own, teasing faux outrage:

"Once again you speak only of my body. It remains most unfair."

Loki, too, draws his legs in, and his embrace encompasses more of Thor. He kisses his brother's collarbone with his burning lips, light-headed to make himself so vulnerable as to trust in another's acceptance – Thor's especially. For two thousand years he fought others for shreds of it.

"You have been good to me," he whispers, "and you alone in the world are my love."

"Come back to me swiftly, Loki," Thor impels, tilting Loki's chin up; they renegotiate their positions – cool skin sliding against heated – until they are kissing.

Loki thinks he will miss the warmth most of all, for that has never crept beneath his skin and made a home. 

Soon he shall become many times colder.

\----

Tony sits alone in his quarters, on an upper bunk, legs drawn up, Stark pad resting against his thighs and Pepper's face on the screen. She looks as tired as he knows he looks, but she still looks fantastic. Her long hair is in a no-nonsense ponytail. It's late where he is and late where she is but Tony recognizes the accoutrements of her home office behind her, starting with the desk chair she's sitting in.

"How are you doing?" he asks, stroking his thumb along the edge of the tablet as if he could touch her face.

Pepper smiles. The smile reaches her eyes, even though she's approaching on the edge of unconsciousness.

"Busy. Extremely busy. I'm looking into investments that will clone me."

Tony's eyebrows rise.

"—I'll be here in my bunk. I'm bunking over with Rhodey, but I'll hang a sock on the door like we're back at MIT."

Pepper's smile quirks into a smirk, but he won't escape swapping emotions with her with flirtation.

"How about you? How are _you_ doing?" she asks.

They've known each other almost two decades. Pepper knows him better now than she ever did before. After learning late about the palladium poisoning, she's honed a keener sense of when he's withholding something personal from her. Escape is implausible.

"Pepper, I'm not admitting to an emotional crisis if you're not," he says.

Pepper gentles. Her compassion is killing him. Her flirty smile couples with composure and pride. For him.

"We're both doing everything we can to save as many people as possible."

Her reassurance fails.

Tony flashes a Hollywood grin.

"The Devourer army is cutting into my reading time."

Pepper goes quiet for a moment, suddenly sober, studying at him like she's working on a Rubik's cube.

She sighs.

"We have biologists, Tony. They already know biology, and I am shipping them everything they ask for."

There's no fighting off the emotions that seize Tony. He remembers being this frustrated once before, when he returned from Afghanistan and realized he had an actual globe of and decades of misappropriated munitions to clean up and hands soaked with blood.

"That would be _great_ if they were as smart as I am," he says. "I was a weapons guy for thirty-eight years. I liked explosions before I could toddle. In all that time it never occurred to me it would be a good idea to design countermeasures against biological weapons. 'All out offense all the time' – if I had a family crest those would be the words on the family crest. I can't fix _this_ alien invasion of Earth from inside of Iron Man with my hands. Iron Man isn't **enough**."

Letting the words escape at a yell hollows out the rest of his chest around the arc reactor's body-heated casing. He can't gauge how long his certainty has been propping him up – pricking him to carry on despite the complaints of his exhausted body.

Pepper folds her arms on her desk. Her blue eyes tell him across the distance that that she's imagining putting those arms around him. This call between them is a stolen moment. Tony bets she can't even wait by the phone for him, even with a phone in her pocket, because her hands are never free. They're both working their fingers to the bone and minutes wasted are counted in bodies.

"You have to decide if you can do more here in America than in Argentina. I can't do my job and think about you out there in a firefight with your mind in the lab."

That does it. He's had it.

"We should sleep."

Pepper's not relenting that easily:

"If you stay up all night reading you could start hallucinating out there."

Tony offers no answer. Pepper reluctantly rests her case.

"Let Rhodey take care of you, Tony," she says. "He knows how to pace himself."

Tony takes a last look at her. He sees freckles, the first lines of age, sharp eyes, conservative earrings in her double pierced ears and lips he wants to drown in in the dark.

"I love you, babe," Tony swears.

Pepper takes a last look at his haggard face, knowing a conversation ender when she hears one.

"I love you," she says, letting him go.

\----

"…as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not to temptation, but deliver us from evil. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy ghost. Amen."

Steve has never worshiped anywhere like the Helicarrier's multi-faith prayer room. A rainbow of colors enmeshed in meaningless geometric designs shines in the backlit stained glass window. Inset within the wall are a crucifix and an ornate cylindrical case marked with two Stars of David. In front of the window and these embedded relics stands an altar, undecorated save for the plain white cloth draped across it. Standing on its own table in the corner is a bound volume with Middle Eastern calligraphic script. Steve has worked out that it's a Qu'ran. There is, too, a free-standing table where a four-armed, elephant-headed statue sits enthroned. In place of pews are removable chairs. 

It took Steve minutes to adjust to this alien environment before kneeling before the altar to pray. During prior stays, quiet hours alone in his quarters at his desk with his Bible sufficed. Today, he grew restless. The room felt emptier than before. 

God is everywhere, he reassures himself, and in every religion people are reaching out toward God, knowing their connection to him was impoverished – waiting to accept the light of Jesus. 

The multi-faceted room is transformed by his beliefs into testament to the one true God whose son Jesus Christ died for mankind's sins and on the third day rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven to sit at the right hand of the Lord. He looks down at the Bible in his hands, its store-bought newness still bright on its cover, the gold-edged pages not yet worn by years of thumbing through to favorite passages.

He looks up at the altar, at the white cloth with squared corners.

"Mephisto. I'm willing to talk," he announces to the empty room. If there's a chance of saving the Earth in it then he has to at least evaluate that for himself. He casts a wary look around him but no devil appears. He wrecks against guilt for his attempted transgression in the silence. Stomach sour, he opens to a familiar passage, reading aloud: 

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations."

He turns to another passage and begins again to read.

A voice from behind him interrupts:

"'But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.' That's my _personal_ favorite."

Steve is on his feet in an instant, wheeling to find a man of a sort lounging in one of the third-row chairs. He is all Steve feared he would be: vibrant red skin, narrow, goat-like features, ears misshapen, eyes aflame and mouth filled with the teeth of a shark. 

The devil is dressed in a tight-fitted black shirt with a white clerical collar tucked around his throat. He has draped his shoulders in a silk stole embroidered with a gold cross on each breast.

That Steve did not expect.

"No wonder you and Loki are friends. I'm seeing the same ostentation," Steve says, gesturing to the costume.

The devil waves away the accusation, a smile affixed to his lips. He crosses his legs at the knee, stretching out in the chair.

"I hoped to make you feel more at home. Your lot traditionally turns to a pastor when bartering over your soul."

"And you have no problem wearing the cross," Steve says aloud, struggling to make that and the devil himself a part of his reality.

" _I'm_ not a Christian," the devil says in offense. "Christian devils exist: small, superstitious things that believe they're doing the Lord's work culling rotten souls. They take the most deformed ones they can find, spend their years flogging them and never rise in power."

"You call yourself Mephisto. Mephistopheles, from the story of Faust. That's Christian."

The devil applauds him with a single clap of his black-nailed hands.

"It's all about marketing. You get a weak reaction with Asmodeus or Mammon in the modern world, and blank looks in most circles if you call yourself Angra Mainyu. I've given those names away to other devils. Mephisto is a name that wins the hearts of my public. And, since I am the only Mephisto news reaches me from all corners of the world – although in cases like yours I send a little demon to Earth to follow in your shadow and serve as my ear." Mephisto steeples his fingers, smile in place. "Enough about me. Let's talk about what I can do for you."

Steve takes a deep breath. He'd rather be in the bathroom puking. Humans filled with their own spoiled blood, skin sloughing off their bodies and the bodies of scorched, broken soldiers, their weapons melted into their hands, compel him forward.

"I need the strength to knock these Jötunn off the face of the earth, and to go toe to toe with Thanos. I have a real difficult time believing you can actually give me that."

Mephisto nods along.

"I can't guarantee your ultimate victory. I can… _significantly_ amplify your endurance and invoke through you the fires of Hell that burn even the creatures of Múspellsheimr – but, for one thing, it is not enough to just pact with me. If your heart is all shiny in celebration of your own nobility there's no room for me. You have to foster inside you hatred uncorrupted by the least shred of mercy for your sooty foes. Think of… No. Apologies. You missed Star Wars. Not enough time to hold a screening." The devil rephrases the proposition: "You can dwell on no noble thoughts. No feelings of love. We must be of the same nature for our bond to produce its full effect."

Steve hesitates, voice barely more than a whisper.

"Will I be damning the Earth?"

Mephisto's smile vanishes. The wrinkle in his forehead broadcasts he's reevaluating Steve's intellect.

"What? No. If only it were so easy. Your soul is the only soul in the balance – unless you want to hold a recruitment drive, for which I offer perks that make your eternal suffering more tolerable."

Steve cringes, for a minute more frustrated more than he is terrified.

"There's no way for me to know this isn't some insane con job. I don't know if I believe you're what you say you are, but I know not to put that past Loki."

The devil's answer is a shrug. He unfolds himself and rises to his full height, navigating the rows of chairs to join Steve at the altar. He lays a red hand upon it.

"Even if I took you on a tour of Hell, you wouldn't know for certain if my word is good. What we both know is that every minute humans across the globe are turning to black pudding, consumed by disease, and being slaughtered at the hands of fire giants. Human technology and its metahuman products have proven themselves an insufficient buffer against both onslaughts. The question is whether you're willing to risk _not_ confronting your supernatural foes with supernatural might."

Steve hates himself, but the truth is clear. 

"I'm not willing to risk that."

In a flash of flame the devil conjures an ink pen with a wickedly sharp tip and leaf of parchment. The parchment he lays on the altar cloth for Steve's inspection.

_I, Steven Rogers, pledge my soul to Mephistopheles and consent of my own free will to allow him to unleash through me all the power at his command upon my enemies and his, including the sons of Múspell and the Titan Thanos Rex._

_In return for his power, when I depart my incarnate body I will eternally serve him in Hell._

"I decided against penning it in legalese. This is as straightforward a contract as you'll get from anyone. All it requires is our names in blood on the lines."

"Give me the pen."

For all Steve's durability, the pen easily penetrates his flesh; Steve watches his blood welling up into its glass barrel. He refuses to think. Chest awash in adrenaline he puts the blood-filled pen to paper, scribing his signature in looping crimson letters. Keeping a tight grasp on his composure he passes the pen to the demon. Mephisto puts the nib between his lips, sucking out the blood, then pierces himself and signs in turn in letters ichorous black.

"One small detail," Mephisto says while he rolls up the scroll. Steve goes cold. The pen and scroll vanish in the same manner that they appeared. "Expect no augmentation from me until Surtr walks the earth. Otherwise the Jötunn king will be in the position to warn Thanos."

"But the contract says…"

"That you will allow me to channel my power. Look on the bright side: If you're killed before you become my vessel they might still allow you into your 'Heaven.' And let me be frank: You're going to need that time to rehearse your hatred."

Another shark toothed smile. Mephisto vanishes in a swirl of fire. Steve feels the heat on his skin but remains in the grip of the unreality that surrounded the entire transaction.

He feels no different than before the devil appeared to him. He has no confidence that either Loki or Mephisto are playing it straight.

Drowning in guilt over his apostasy, he leaves his Bible on the altar and heads to his bunk to steal what sleep he can find.

**(Asgard)**

Odin's chamber is even more imposing than Jane imagined it would be. The air bears a sharp, herbal scent. The skin of some ferocious beast of a size difficult to comprehend serves as its carpet upon which stand furnishings hammered from alloyed gold. As do many of Glaðsheimr's rooms, it features a central fire pit, larger in this room because the space itself is tremendous. Weapons stand on display, some familiar to Jane but many exotic. Gleaming crystals rest on open surfaces, their purposes obscure. Upon the floor, near one wall, a circle has been incised into the floor, its groove filled with powder. Beside it stand candelabras. Around it are shelves boasting flasks of every size and color, metal boxes and ritual instruments. Jane thinks that in films circles like that are typically filled with evil looking writing, but she works out that if there is ever writing Odin must paint it spell by spell.

Upon a dead tree, its wood polished until it gleams, sit two huge ravens. Neither shows particular interest in Jane. From the high ceiling the bones of huge beasts are suspended, taking Jane back to exhibits at the Smithsonian.

Odin stands awaiting her. His expression is neither warm nor forbidding. In truth, he looks very old, but he cuts an impressive figure, his armor hues of brass. The metal plate affixed over his empty eye socket is gold.

"The lady Jane Foster," the king says in welcome.

Jane has no idea if she should bow or curtsy. She tries the latter on for size but comes out of it positive she messed up. For one thing, she's wearing jeans.

"Your highness…" Heat leaps to her cheeks. "I'm sorry, I don't know etiquette the way Darcy does."

Odin's stern countenance softens with a smile.

"I have walked the cities of your planet a thousand times, taken dinner with countless strangers, learned its tongues and shared them with my subjects. If you behave as an American you will neither shock me nor raise my ire."

Jane smiles her own embarrassed smile.

"Good to know. Americans are famous for being uncontrollably American. Even if I'm in other countries I spend all my time on my research and none of it having cultural experiences." —she realizes she's starting to ramble and checks herself.

Odin focuses his attention, sobering. Jane thinks he looks sad.

"You have come here to ask me questions and hope that my answers will illuminate facets of your work by shadows obscured."

"If it's not too much trouble," Jane says while telling herself that if it was she wouldn't be here in the first place.

Odin offers her a seat in one golden chair. She accepts it graciously. He sits in another.

One of the ravens jumps from its perch to fly to the back of the chair in a beating of wings that doesn't quite achieve flying.

"What _is_ the Tessearct?" she asks, her embarrassment falling away as her focus resolves on her subject of recent analysis.

Odin's posture is regal but his words offered without condenscension.

"An almost endless source of dark energy. Dark energy has the potential to become any substance in existence, and in the same way it can be employed to work transformations upon all which already exists."

Jane chews her lower lip, fitting that to what she knows.

"Right. The Concordance Theory proposed that in a vacuum particles and their anti-particles are constantly coming in and out of existence in the void. So, I think you're talking about exciting dark energy to create or influence persistent particles – but the rules of the rest of the universe say energy can't just come out of nowhere. All the dark energy in Midgard is at least theoretically accounted for."

Odin nods affirmation, reaching up to scratch the chest of the raven which has hopped from the back of his chair to his shoulder.

"The Tesseract is no different. It intersects the universe at the cube now in my vault, but its energy can be dispersed over inconceivable distances – even across realms – because it is not in truth a part of our universe. Its energy is not expended but is instead returns to the Tesseract so that, to us, it appears a source of boundless power."

Jane shifts in her seat, letting her gaze wander to the esoteric paraphernalia in Odin's chamber before returning her full attention to the god.

"Where did it come from?"

"The Tesseract was birthed by the dying thought of a being of Midgard that, at that time, held the revered title of Sorcerer Supreme. All of us who practice sorcery seek a complete understanding of the universe. It is a rare living mind that attains that pinnacle. In that moment, Fate erodes." 

Odin looks away toward a box no more or less remarkable than any other box. Jane allows him his reflection, having enough manners to know not to assume the King of Asgard is having a 'senior moment.' She winces, embarrassed for even wondering. Odin's attention returns to her shortly. Jane smiles especially awkwardly and nods for him to go on.

"The Tesseract is not the first Cosmic Cube to appear. When the Skrull empire – the remnants of which your planet so recently encountered – was at its apex, scientists seeking to power all the Skrull's endeavors created, by means obscure, a Cosmic Cube. The Empire put it to work until half the energy by which the Empire powered its weapons and machineries was borrowed from the Cube."

Jane tries and fails to imagine the scale of that Cube's distribution. She has a better idea of astronomical distances than any layperson, but complete understanding is out of her reach.

"Dr. Selvig thinks – and I think – that the Tesseract is alive," she says, trying to figure out how that fits in.

"The Skrulls used the Cube and the Cube learned from the Skrulls," Odin says. "One day all their vast works simultaneously went dead. Where the Cube had been stood instead the being history calls – calls that Cube – the Shaper of Worlds. Like fools the Skrulls sought to incapacitate and re-enslave the newborn being. Knowing only Skrulls, the distraught Shaper obliterated every ship and planet it had ever touched. Then it vanished – or, at least, it diminished."

Jane runs a hand through her hair, hearing forewarning in Odin's words.

"Basically what you're telling me is 'handle with care'. I know this Tesseract has been through a lot, a lot of it not so great. You probably know right now I'm trying to talk to it like Loki talked to it. I was already planning to be a lot less pushy."

Odin is grave.

"Loki had the advantage of carrying what I suspect were the Shaper's remains. Whatever Skrull hid them, I believe that when Thanos delved into his half-breed Skrull heritage he uncovered the existence and eventually the location of that artifact."

"The scepter's stone dead…" Jane says, grappling with the implications. "If it was linked to the Tesseract, then the Tesseract probably remembers everything that happened to the Shaper. Maybe I'll have somebody a little less blunt than me initiate first contact."

Jane has been thinking of the Tesseract as a puzzle box she's dying to open. She realizes now that may not be a humane approach.

When he speaks, Odin sounds amused.

"You are single-minded but honest. There are worse candidates."

**(Then: Titan)**

The fury that filled Thanos seemed bigger to him than his adolescent body. His fists beat his victim senseless, then with continuing violence into a swollen, leaking sack of flesh. When he stood up to triumph over the dying opponent moaning at his feet, that was when he first glimpsed her from the corner of his eye: an austere figure with the skeleton of a Titan robed in a fabric darker than black – reflecting no light at all.

So taken was Thanos by her that his frenzy abated suddenly and completely. They stood together in silence, the air stinking of blood spilt and bowels emptied. They watched what had been only minutes before a boy jerk violently through convulsions, and then go still. The last signs of life rapidly evacuated the oozing heap of refuse.

The skeletal woman disappeared, leaving Thanos standing alone above his victim.

Fear rallied him to expend every effort to disappear all evidence of his crime. Later, when the body had been destroyed and Thanos's hands were washed of blood, the youth reflected upon his achievement with pride. No longer would that tormenter mock his distorted features.

His thoughts fixated on the lady who had joined him in his victim's final moments. Had she conferred her approval upon him with something as simple as blessing him with the sight of her? 

Enraptured as he was by her mystique she became the subject of his every idle fantasy. He barely heeded the mounting investigation into the disappearance of the boy he had slain. Murder was unheard of on Titan. Its people would not suspect Thanos the culprit without the evidence he had diligently erased.

What did it matter to young Thanos even if he should be apprehended? The boy's death was a small tithe to pay to be introduced to the object of his chaste attraction and all-consuming admiration. He began to wish that suspicion _did_ fall upon him so that he might gloat of his depravity and his revulsion with his short-lived enemy's existence; gloat over the strength of his hands by which his foe had been dispatched; gloat, too, best of all that the Ebon Lady had graced _him_ with her presence. Him and none other, although others across the cosmos surely murdered and slayed.

It had come to him by intuition that his spectral visitor was Death herself: She who reaped souls, taking them beyond the veil through which none living passed.

The planet remembered by history as Titan had flourished for eons. The ancient beings that walked it eliminated hunger and with it the need to kill for food. They eliminated disease and reliance on diminishing energy resources. Mastery of their environment provided an essential stepping stone. Once that had been achieved they won true freedom and the promise of immortality by engineering themselves and their children into gods. 

That history of perfection singled Thanos out from his peers for the worse.

Across three millennia, although the first born son of Mentor, ruler of Titan, Thanos' inexplicable deformities made him the object of scorn and ridicule among peers afraid – by leftover mortal instinct rather than personal familiarity – that he might be contagious.

His father was handsome, his mother an outstanding beauty, his brothers and sisters fair. Then, Thanos: purple-skinned, almost without a nose, and small eyed with a generous chin composed of fleshy ridges.

"Why am I alone so hideous?" he once begged of his father.

"You are not hideous, but reflect those cosmic circumstances which surrounded your birth," Mentor said with compassion. "Your mother traveled to Titan from afar. Until your birth neither of us realized the work upon her body yet to be done."

Thanos did not believe his father, especially after he researched the means to completely remodel himself and discovered them torturous and uncertain. Mentor was not a man known for speaking falsehoods, but too obviously the Titan glossed over the details if his mother, but not her child, had been reparable.

In his exile from society – in part externally enforced and in part voluntary – a young Thanos had devoured all knowledge of his race's scientific achievements in biology, chemistry, engineering, metallurgy, computer science and astrophysics. The beauty of his environs with their lush gardens and sweeping architectural wonders was lost on the Titan whose attention ever rested upon some electronic font of knowledge.

Until, with the death of his countryman at his own hands, he achieved a sudden and complete liberation from the expectations of his civilization. 

He killed again.

Death appeared after he took up a length of metal from a construction site and secured a victim into whom he beat furrows. Blood gushed from those gory canyons in rivers, pouring over the dying Titan's body, soaking his pale robes until they became a soggy red.

The young Thanos stood tall and proud over this second victim, casting a look yearning for admiration upon the mistress who he worshipped.

She returned not his look and did not smile, for no eyes she had nor lips to smile with. She rewarded her disciple with a single nod, so Thanos disposed of this body, cleaned the ground and his weapon and continued on. Great plans had already taken root in his mind. He began making his preparations to execute them.

Death reappeared beside him, again, when he chose his next victim – before the violence had started. She looked on as he brutalized the screaming Titan. This victim Thanos dismembered. By doing so he learned Death took no interest in post-mortem violence.

When he committed his penultimate atrocity – the murder of a mother, her two daughters and her bawling baby boy – he at last saw his mistress invigorated, pallorous flesh upon her face and eyes in once-empty sockets. Such exquisite beauty he had ne'er beheld. She looked in a way like a Titan. It was only that she wore the expended life-force of the victims Thanos had sacrificed to her.

At that moment Thanos yearned for Death with a soul-deep longing that stained his heart the black of starless space. Again by intuition, graced perhaps by a certain telempathy, he knew to kiss Death's lips would be the end of him and render him of use to her no longer.

He vowed: "Next I see you, my works will have so glorified you you shall know that I am your intended: above all else yours as no mortal being has ever been. I will gift you Titan; consign a great harvest of souls to that land beyond so that in death they may serve you. It is, my lady, but a paltry gift. A rude gemstone. Titan, my home, does not justice to your magnificence. May it be the first of many tributes. But may it in a small way, I hope, please you. I must grow in power before I can lay at your feet all the wonders you so richly deserve to enjoy."

Death spoke not to him, yet Thanos knew he had lain out a fine plan and that his lady would relish so glorious a feast as the extinction of a planet.


	7. Chapter 7

**(Now: Jötunheimr)**

Bleak Jötunheimr spans unchanged since last Loki trespassed upon its glacial highlands. A light snow is falling and fresh snow crystals cling together loosely atop the older, compact and icy layer crunching beneath Loki's boots as he treads to a windbreak. His eyes sweep the snowy landscape for signs of life.

When brought into the Observatory from Earth, he requested Heimdall put him down where no Jötunn would be likely to see Bifrost erupt from the sky. Heimdall is scarcely fond of Loki. Loki could think of a hundred ways around his own request – for example, the Jötunn in question being just underground and within ear's reach – but it seems Heimdall has been generous either because of the solemnity with which he performs his duties under a king he fancies or because the situation upon Earth is dire.

Loki remains alert when his back is safe against stone and keeps a wide view of the landscape before him. He only briefly closes his eyes and lets his thoughts travel to the demon whose pact his lips still burn with. Branding it on each other's flesh has connected them. Loki hopes Mephisto's lips suffer with illusory frostbite.

The prince is long left waiting. In the meanwhile, he entertains the variety of betrayals the devil could be concocting. Mephisto must give him the Cask, but striking a deal with and preparing an ambush of Jötnar to immediately wrest it from his grasp would be a diabolical way to bolster Thanos and Surtr's forces. The entire deal could be a ruse to place Loki out of the way while evil doings are wrecked on Earth or Asgard. Mephisto surrendering the Cask and then setting Thanos upon him is too terrifying for Loki to dwell upon. Thanos has yet to exact the revenge for Loki's failure the Titan promised and Loki has put himself beyond Thor's reach.

Snow forms a faint layer upon his hair and his clothes and he feeds on rations in the time before Mephisto appears. Loki takes no pains to mask his foul and suspicious pique. Despite holding the Cask in his bloody, clawed hands Mephisto further sours Loki's spirits with his gloating, fanged, unapologetic grin.

"Did you expect me to conjure your prize upon demand? First there was extricating myself from Thanos, and seven score dark elves have died for you." The devil reconsiders. "No, five score. The others I slayed for sport. How rarely do I spill blood by mine own prowess." His vicious grin rebounds.

Loki remains standing stiffly, eyes traveling back and forth between the devil and the prize owed to him. Thoughts of wrenching it from Mephisto's grasp and making a fast escape race through his mind. There is no escaping a creature that decorporealizes at will.

Loki comprehends that should he be betrayed then doing battle utilizing the cask of Ymir's power is his only hope.

"How wretched it must be to be trapped within your broken mind," Mephisto chides, coming to Loki and passing the bloodstained Cask into Loki's hands.

The burn passes from Loki's lips.

He opens his soul to the Cask as he has learned under Freyja's tutelage to open his soul to spirits. His hands tighten upon the artifact's black, blood crusted handholds. The Cask's muted light waxes to a brilliant white. Power washes into Loki in a chill wave. His skin is instantaneously blue, ridges rising from his flesh. A change works inside him, beginning in the depths of his chest. Baptized in ice, the ridges of his skin break from beneath as crystals grow to cover them in place of flesh. Water runs liquid in the channels beneath them. His hair falls away to lie in feathery black drifts atop the snow. His flesh is the last to go, corrupted into hardest ice fed from those liquid channels.

This power Loki knew a little of before, but so bent was he on achieving Heimdall's observatory and abandoning the artifact to secure Jötunheimr's destruction and so great was his detestation of his own blood that he declined to internalize its potency, though its energies washed over his skin.

Power achieved, he disappears the Cask.

"A pretty imitation of a Jötunn you make," Mephisto says, walking a slow circle around Loki in the snow.

Loki's lips curl at the devil's dismissive tone. Pushing down his inherent disgust, he lays claim to his new powers.

"Before I thought of the Casket as a tool. Now, I sense I am some part of it. With it my body becomes ice. No longer have I a beating heart. I am purified of weak flesh. I like my inheritance not so little as I once thought; what more is there?"

Mephisto's smiles unnaturally wide, features sharpening as dismissal turns to mocking. He raises his hand to his lips, tongue slithering over one finger, carrying away what dark elf blood is still damp. 

"I see before me an inferior specimen of your breed. You are Loki, king by right, but you are small and no Devourer. A Jötunn which turns his prey to ice and feasts not upon its flesh? Some would say that's no Jötunn at all."

Loki, chin lifted, stands defiant.

"You tempt me sorely, devil."

"But that's the point," Mephisto says. Dripping with sensuality and in fascinated appraisal he reaches out toward Loki's cheek. Loki is fast to catch his arm, pushing his thumb into the devil's inner wrist, arctic power corrupting a small patch of skin. It is a battle waged against Mephisto's innate might. He makes headway only because the devil does not contest him. Pleasure at causing pain comes to Loki, nevertheless, twined with the excitement that perpetually accompanies high stakes contests of manners.

He studies in detail the dull, drying blood on Mephisto's hand. Brighter, fresher layers are caked upon brittle brown. The splattered gore of his massacre extends up to the devil's elbows. The thrill of the illicit and the disgusting moves Loki when he tastes the blood from Mephisto's skin, at no risk of slicing his watery tongue upon the devil's razor sharp fingers.

"You tempt me to test Ymir's Cask upon you – and it seems, as I suspected, that the blood from one fleshy body tastes little different from the blood of any other," he says, holding Mephisto's yellow-eyed gaze. He releases his grasp on the devil and they both lower their hands.

"My apologies, my sweet liege. One makes assumptions about another's proclivities when he consorts so grossly, mixing fluids with a great brute of an Áss."

"Thor is exceptional for having tamed me. Beneath him I am liberated from the demands of all my black urges. Under Thanos' tutelage I discovered so _many_ maddening pleasures bound up with power and brutality." Loki's lowered voice becomes a sibilant hiss, his icy teeth bared at Mephisto. "When was the last time someone fucked _you_ , devil?"

Such a baffled expression appears upon Mephisto's face that Loki grins in triumph, exulting in disarming something as ancient and brutal as a Hell lord.

"Oh? _That_ long?"

The black poison Thanos cultivated in Loki's mind wells up through the fractures in the constructed control that contained it. All Loki's thoughts turn toward wrecking violence, whether at this convenient target or whoever dares to be sitting upon his throne. He longs, for one moment, for his brother. The long-denied high banishes that thought from his mind. He yet thinks of Thor, but not of his soothing effect.

"You are glutted and spoiled by power," he goes on hissing. "You remind me too dearly of my sibling before maturity taught him to be grateful for his strength. Such a monotone existence: wallowing lazy in Hell, bloated and intoxicated by your successes. Look at you: in spent foes up to your elbows. You killed forty for pleasure? For your own enjoyment? Forty only? No doubt a rare feat for Mephisto the slothful. Mephisto the all but inert."

"Temper, temper," Mephisto chides softly. He is distracted with another, more careful inspection of Loki. "No one takes that tone of voice with me," he says not in reprimand but admiration.

Loki is merry with a cruel camaraderie. 

"I am Loki, called Silvertongue and Sin-Sly," he says, "and I will continue, if you desire. You have positioned me in Jötunheimr as you wished. Whatever other little prospects you've groomed, you see now I am greater in wit and prowess than the rest combined. Now, I must be provisioned to carry out my ends. You will deal with me as I first asked: The debt owed will be yours," he gloats. "Once I am king, you will come to me upon the second night in the form you hold now and I will do to you what I wish and fuck you. I will revive in you the memory of your so pitifully eroded vigor. In return, should Thor be in mortal danger you will extract him from the threat and take him to a place where naught may harm him, but from which I may safely retrieve him."

Mephisto folds his arms, expression drawn in thought. He shrugs his lithe shoulders, running his tongue over his lips. Loki rests assured Mephisto will assent – vanity menaces them the same.

"You've crafted an offer too insulting to be turned down. I accept," the devil decides. "I now wonder if you will manage any effect upon me at all. My curiosity is positively _electric_. Not, I think, the kind of electricity I'll be treated to if I interrupt the glorious death of Mjölnir's master, but that will be of no effect at all if he is a guest in my Hell." 

Loki hears Mephisto's words and sees his own actions unspooling down a path that could lead to ruin. _It is the Tesseract that will decide it,_ he thinks. He must set aside all remaining thoughts of being the pride of his mother. She has foreseen the worst he can be.

The devil sobers and holds up one blood caked finger, Loki sobering in turn.

"Eat as much as you're able of the most powerful Jötunn you slay. That Devourer may not be the nominal leader. Then, step away and command the rest to feast on the slain. Little cultural details matter," he instructs. "They will not be restored to ice until you use the Cask at the heart of the fortress. —This isn't the first time they've lost it in going on fourteen billion years." He adds with a distant look of one visiting with nostalgia: "I had it for a toy myself for some thousands of years. Hellfire and ice… It didn't completely agree with me. I was experimenting with having seasons, but my littlest demonic supplicants kept pathetically meeting extinction."

Loki is calm, for Mephisto's tone is not patronizing. They are for this moment in accord.

"Leave me to my business," Loki bids. "If you are not diligently working to deceive me, I believe your own is the deluding of Thanos."

Mephisto makes a show of repulsion.

"Foul work. Nothing is worse than pandering to a fanatic who refuses to contract with you. The good Captain is a zealot of better stock."

Despite his complaint, he disappears in an instant, leaving a wisp of fading red energy in the air.

Loki sets aside all thoughts save those of the task now before him.

\----

Stunning in his completion, a higher form of Jötunn although slight and clad in the style of an Æsir, Loki Odinson walks uncontested past the Jötnar standing guard at the entrance to the fortress. These same guards might have seen him before, when he paid the visit to Laufey that lured his birth parent to his destruction. Now, they look upon him with both awe and confusion. The power long lost to them radiates from his crystalline body. He leaves a fine crust of ice upon the stone of the courtyard and the stairs with every step.

The guards at the top of the stairs that open into the fortress-temple's great hall are more dutiful, or perhaps convinced that with guards behind him he will be pinned within the narrow stairwell should it come to battle. Their weapons cross before the doorway.

"I am Loki, Laufey's son and the son of Odin, raised by the Odin Spear-shaker in the wake of the last great war. As king in Odin's stead I slayed Laufey and left a crater upon this world from which, without the Cask of Ancient Winters I have in my possession, it will not soon recover. The throne of Jötunheimr is mine." 

"Allow him entrance," a voice booms from within. "Let me look upon the interloper who names himself a pet of Asgard, our would-be king."

The guards step away, suspicious and hostile but nervous, too.

A giant of considerable size, in bulk much greater than Laufey, sits upon Jötunheimr's throne of cold rock. Loki approaches fearlessly. He has his knives, his illusions, and the untested power of Ymir.

"Who are you, upon my seat?" Loki inquires with faux-pleasantry.

"Þjazi, son of Ölvaldi and ruler of Jötunheimr," the Jötunn answers, equally fearless. "I recognize you, although we now share race. You are indeed the worm who lured Laufey to his death. I see, too, you have the Cask that by right should be mine."

"An understandable difference of opinion, but for you one most unfortunate," Loki says. "You should show me gratitude, Þjazi, for I have accomplished that which you failed to achieve even though the Cask had passed from Asgard."

"Set the Cask aside and let us see if Þjazi and his champions prove worthiest to wield it," a royal guardsman interjects. Loki marks to himself that that one of these might be the kind Jötunn great in strength but impoverished in leadership that Mephisto warned him of.

Loki calculates his odds, remembering his last battle in Jötunheimr. Fandral's overenthusiasm and the monster of the wastes Laufey set upon them were disadvantageous, but neither Fandral nor the beast is in the throne room.

"By all means," he agrees. "But you must fault me not that my prowess in battle is not in the style of our race when it proves your undoing."

The heart that returns to his chest begins pounding as he allows the power of the Cask to subside within him. The Cask that he makes a display of setting behind him upon the carving-rich floor is illusion alone. So is the facsimile of Loki which relinquishes it. Loki himself steps to the side, knife coming to his hand. As his double turns and one among the guard rushes it with a roar that shakes the throne room, Loki springs easily onto its back, blade ripping open the warrior's jugular. The blood spurting from its throat splashes upon the stone. His huge body crashes into its puddle.

The same deadly weapon buries itself in the neck of a second guard as swiftly as that Jötunn makes the choice to move upon him. 

Loki freezes, body statue stiff. The charm cast over him is one he recognizes – a charm with which to fetter foes. The guard he suspected mighty sends him flying with the swing of a terrible flail; Loki's body, carried aloft, crashes with bone-rattling force against the chamber's high, hard wall.

He grits out the words to ward himself through bloody teeth, fortuitous that with a mouth full of blood he may spit it upon the floor, drawing the runes in red with quick slashes of his fingers. He hears Þjazi charming his opponent with the same deterrent, magics burning through töfr, his tools of power, in place of blood. Loki staggers to his feet, casting illusory doubles which will confound the bruiser until Þjazi counters with a charm of true seeing. 

Two blades sink into the massive giant's breast and one into his forearm; it has swiftly guarded its neck against the vulnerability which felled its peers. Its lungs may be filling with blood, but it has not the liberty to be concerned.

Loki does not attack from the front but, being so little in comparison, sweeps downwards and ravages that Jötunn's hamstring from behind before his illusions are banished. The illusion of the Cask disappears as well.

The other guards don't move to intervene, seeing that Loki fights in the flesh but could with but a thought become potent enough to dispatch with them all.

Blood drips and bubbles over Loki's lips from a tongue bitten almost in half and runs, too, from his nose.

Loki swipes the blood from his upper lip and swiftly draws the runes to staunch bleeding upon his forearm. Þjazi has spared his warrior from drowning at the same time.

After swift contemplation of Þjazi's potential value as a siði, he chooses to focus upon only the brute. Wielding knives against a Jötunn whose flail is closer to Loki's size than the other Devourer itself would have been, if contemplated in advance, so obviously inferior to wielding a spear or even a sword.

The time for spells is over; seiðr swamps the throne room. Loki's eyes are murderous. He does not intend to lose, but an ingrained sense that the greater victory will be to dismember this foe with his own hands pricks him. The valuation of honor is much alike among all the elder races; valor is not in Loki's nature, but he takes it up as a tool.

He contemplates what Thor or Sif would do faced with this same dilemma. Holding memories of their valor in mind he rushes forward. He stops short of his foe and the flail wraps twice around his raised arm, crushing it utterly. He expects the burst of ice that pierces his back, for such an attack laid Fandral low. The charm against bleeding is some solace. In his mania for violence Loki applies his knife and strength to shearing through the muscles of the Jötunn's forearm, indefensible with the Jötunn's hand tightly gripping the flail.

The brute's hand goes limp. The flail falls from it to the floor, now an anchor upon Loki's arm. Loki thinks upon the ice penetrating his back and that which is buried within him shatters. Disregarding the deadweight on his ruined arm he goes for the kill, thrusting a blade into the bigger Jötunn's bare belly and dragging it upward, plunging it furthest in where its liver must be and giving the blade a twist be before stumbling backward, heaving for air both from exertion and the monumental pain.

Þjazi has rested his elbow upon the arm of the throne. Loki allows Ymir's might fill him again, his armor ruined but his body, where not crushed by the flail, swiftly repaired. Glaring in yet unspent rage at the so-called king he unbinds the flail from his arm – rebuilding this awith fresh ice, too.

He looks down on his fallen but conscious foe whose blood gurgles in its throat with each breath. He passes his now-liquid tongue across the back of his jagged teeth.

Eating an enemy alive never made the list of Loki's many ambitions. He suspects it a true product of tradition. His fully furbished Jötunn form does not by itself make the idea appealing.

His enemy's eyes roll in its head, falling away toward the floor as Loki crouches over him and rips a bloody bite of neck and shoulder away with a predator's teeth. He swallows it, washing it down with a surge of water. He kens it is the liquid blood and the spiritual essence of his opponent which fulfills him and not in the least the meat. Somewhere within him that, too, will be broken down, but he is water and without a stomach – or at least cannot feel one.

This eases his revulsion, and so he eats. It matters not to him when his enemy expires; the Devourer was already incapable of further resistance.

Loki stands, looking to Þjazi. The air is tense but the tension broken when the king rises from its seat, descending the stairs and eating second from Loki's kill, ferociously angry but abiding. He watches the huge, brute-faced creature tear away a mouthful of flesh with the jerk of his head and despises it for it, wanting no part of a ritual so ugly, refusing to reflect on his own role.

The other guards join it, and so, too, do those Jötnar called in from the courtyard. Loki watches them consume the three dead. The wet ripping of muscle from bone and ligament, the slick noises of hands digging through bloody organs and the dulled snap of pliant, living bone rise from the depths of the impromptu feast. Other Jötnar appear. All eat with resignation – with no sign of enthusiasm. Some among their eyes go empty before they kneel and ravage a body. Regardless, soon enough all that is left of the dead is the blood on the floor and the splinters of all the bones cracked open for their marrow.

Loki looks to the empty throne. He has been raised for politics. Intuition spurs him to not yet ascend to sit in state.

"I am your king, rightful and blessed by Aurgelmir," he says to his resentful and listless subjects, speaking the native name of Ymir. "You will lead me to that place in this temple of Aurgelmir where the Cask may work the same changes in you which it has wrought in me and may begin reviving our neglected lands."

As Loki expected, that rouses the spirits of several Jötnar. Þjazi himself and two retainers lead him deep beneath the fortress. Hate him though they may, Loki has proven himself as a Jötunn should prove himself. He is secure in the fact that these three will not attempt an honorless assassination and go limping back up to the throne room to reestablish a now insecure and comparatively illegitimate rule.

Loki summons the Cask to his hands as their light. The Cask's home chamber is carved into the glacier upon which the fortress stands. It is ice, all, and shimmers even in dim light. Knowing the planetoid is the remains of Ymir – no, he must remember to call the god only Aurgelmir, now – Loki knows enough of magic to understand that primordial being will in some small way stir when reunited with his essence.

Mephisto's slur upon his "little individuality" grips his mind. Though he does not hesitate in his approach, he loathes his sudden horror that Jötnar are no more than shards of a god. To dissolve after his life, no more than a figment of a chthonic deity, would be as ugly a fate as Hell.

The Cask of Ancient Winters fits squarely into the pillar that is the centerpiece of the room. Loki shoves it in place with spite. Its light races through the prismatic ice, filling the chamber with a white glow as Cask and planet resonate.

"This we call Aurgelmir's heart," Þjazi says, gesturing broadly to the chamber. Already the raised marks upon him have transformed to ice. The disappearance of his skin follows.

"With Aurgelmir 's might we may indeed restore bounty to Jötunheimr. So many were lost at the hands of the bloodthirsty Thunderer and in the collapse of the ice shelf. So many more lives and livelihoods destroyed when the Bifrost shattered our planet," one of the retainer says, his voice dull.

"For a single week in two thousand years we had hope at last that our planet would heal and our race leave behind the weakness of flesh. At the same time you dashed that hope we received a band of thugs at our last stronghold. You are Loki, king; Loki, kinslayer; Loki, the herald of the slaughter of families and decimation of livestock." Þjazi spits upon the floor at Loki's feet. 

Loki's fingers curl in thought of backhanding him. He holds his blow. These Jötnar have waited to give their harsh counsel until they were alone with him in the depths of the earth. A sense of continuity in a transfer of power is vital to the peace of mind of the populous. To make an example of Þjazi would be a declaration of dictatorship he would be tasked to endlessly exert might to maintain.

Searching the Jötnar's faces, he waits to ascertain if their bile is spent.

It is not.

"Odin Bale-worker could not be satisfied with our expulsion from Earth. Two thousand years have we spent as hunters and survivors imprisoned on a slowly perishing planet and now the Hanged One visits upon us his greatest insult, sending Laufey's abandoned runt to conquer!" a third Jötunn bellows, emboldened by the charges his kin have already brought. This Devourer is no more than a youth. He is tall but gangly and his face has not the rugged look of the others'.

Loki feels nothing. These Jötnar _are_ nothing. Despite his slightness in comparison to his subjects, his carnelian eyes are as penetrating looking up as when he is looking down his nose at someone.

"Jötunheimr will pay its last debt for its assault on Earth, and express its gratitude for receiving the Cask that is ours, by aiding that planet against the sons of Múspell," he commands, the first test of his power. 

"Lunacy," Þjazi retorts, not made polite by position. "Walk down the streets of your new kingdom. There is no great army to be amassed! To go face to face with the fire Jötnar would be suicide."

Remaining unaffected, moved only by the chance to return to Thor, Loki thinks upon his fellow siði's words.

"Then we will not fight them face to face. The fire and frost Jötnar, the Æsir and the Vanir all prize marching in line to fling themselves upon one another. That is not an _intelligent_ strategy – it can barely be called strategy at all. You tell me you are hunters and survivors. Then we shall hunt, slaughter our game, retreat and hunt again. There is no other option."

"No other option?" the angered giant demands with a growl. "The option is to rebuild our planet separate from the petty wars of other races!"

Loki clamps down on his irritation – easiest to do when he is scheming.

"An insane Titan concerned solely with the glorification of death seeks the Tesseract under Asgard's protection. Surtr is his natural ally. What at all will be left of Jötunheimr if Earth and Asgard fall to their combined powers?"

"If he speaks the truth, then he is right," Þjazi says with reluctance. He marshals focus. "And how do you mean to bring our raiding parties to Earth, king?"

"Heimdall of Asgard will open the Bifrost to us," Loki says.

"A fresh debt to Asgard when we pay off the debt you say we owe Earth," the lethargic retainer mulls.

"Be not so pessimistic. As Odin's son, the opening of the Bifrost is mine to command. It incurs… 'us' no debt."

"Blame not Iði for his gloom. It was our brother Gangr that you killed last," Þjazi says.

"He fought a worthy battle," Loki says tactfully, still unmoved by the whole affair. "I will take your counsel and walk the streets. I suspect a declaration of war by an unseen and untried king would not invigorate our 'brothers'."

"First rid your speech of your condescension," the hot-headed Jötunn demands. "I _am_ your brother, Býleistr, and Þjazi until today my Regent."

At this Loki feels not sadness, nor is he glad, but surprise runs through him.

"Have we other living kin?" he asks, suspicion sharpening his voice. He thinks of insurgency and wonders if Býleistr will conspire against him should he grow to adulthood.

Býleistr straightens his shoulders, scowling down at Loki. It does nothing to put Loki's mind at ease as to this Jötunn's ambitions. He weighs slaying Býleistr where he stands against further alienating the race of his ancestors.

Loki can see the use of having living kin, although any thought of embracing this creature in a display of fidelity repulses him.

"Helblindi, eldest of we three, was murdered of late by your own hand during the Thunderer's slaughter," Býleistr says.

Loki affects the barest apology.

"How unfortunate." There is no commending Helblindi's death, for the battle in front of the fortress was a massacre. 

He chooses not to ask how his kinsman died. He can honestly say that, to him, one Jötnar looks the same as any other. There is the possibility Helblindi disgracefully plummeted from a cliff. It would be too indelicate to have the Jötnar to confess that.

"Let us go above, little brother. You will walk the streets with me," Loki says to Býleistr, moderating his disgust, chest aching that he call anyone but Thor or the dead Baldur brother.

They walk together, but save for Býleistr's terse explanations of broken landmarks and certain cultural details they do not speak.

**(The Helicarrier)**

Natasha's first detail of the morning is to hunt down a wayward Captain America. She finds him sitting on top of a water pipe in the byways of the ship. He raises a hand to welcome her, not exactly waving. She leans against the wall below, crossing her arms as she looks up at him.

"What happened to the speech about sleeping?" she asks.

He dodges the question.

"Did Fury send you to find me?"

"The best way to get a spy's attention is to disappear off his camera. I'm just here to confirm your safety."

"Safety confirmed," Steve says, committing to a weak smile.

Natasha pushes off from the wall.

"Then I'll be on my way."

Steve's brow knits; he looks distressed.

"—wait. Natasha. I could use some advice."

"Are you sure? My psychiatric assessments read 'work in progress."

"That's why I need advice from _you_ ," Steve says.

After radioing to Fury that Steve's in one piece, Natasha clambers up the handholds and footholds available to her, easing herself onto the pipe beside him. She hugs one knee to her chest, waiting for him to talk with an open expression and hints of concern and curiosity.

It takes Steve a minute to work up to his question.

"How do you and Clint and Nick do it? How do you make the choice to destroy lives gambling that you're doing it for a higher good?"

"You watched the Hydra interrogation footage," Natasha guesses.

Steve's wince tells Natasha she's landed on it before his words confirm it.

"…that's part of it. Whatever Red Skull's motives are, that man in there honestly believed that that plague is the way forward for the human race. Before, during the war, they were chasing the destruction of human infrastructure on a global scale. They wanted the end of governments. We disagreed. So, I killed hundreds of them and burned their work to the ground and buried the bird carrying their dreams under the ice. I look back now and I realize I never talked to a single one of them."

"I hear nationalism does that. I've never experienced it, myself."

Steve shakes his head, vehemence mounting in his voice.

"In front of everybody Nick assumed the United States had an illegal, hidden program for weaponizing smallpox without a second thought. I've started reading, especially once I got familiar with the Internet. And I've talked a long time with James Rhodes. I knew there was something wrong back when when I looked at restaurants and water fountains and bathrooms for blacks only and whites only, but did I ever do anything about it? Japanese internment camps were raised on American soil while I was fighting to join the war overseas. The Tuskegee Experiment, Operation Cyclone, lobbies for 'special interests' in Washington, teenagers on our home ground beaten to death for being homosexual…"

"Steve…" Natasha pauses. "Steve, look at me, because I'm not saying this to hurt you." She waits until she has the full attention of his blue eyes. "You're a weapon made for the U.S. Army by one of the same men responsible for the Manhattan Project."

If he's delved into the conclusion of World War II on Wikipedia, he knows what that is.

His eyes are sad, but a shared understanding is written into his body.

"I needed to hear it. You're the only other person I know who came into it blind. It seems like when you finally understood what it meant to be somebody else's weapon, you kept going. Why?"

Emotion leaps to Natasha's throat. A chill passes through her. She doesn't answer questions that personal. She learned a long time ago not to. But Steve is a bastion of good intentions, and in her gut she wants to give him something to hold onto.

"I have Clint. He's my truth," she says. "They destroyed the part of me that loves like other people love." A shrug of her slim shoulders. "The fact about Clint is there's no bullshit, no pretension, no fantasy, no illusions. I know as long as I'm with him I have a reason to fight." A sad smile. "I don't believe in gods; I don't believe humans are predisposed to good or evil; I don't believe there's anything to learn about myself from sexuality, or carnality, or brutality… So, what's left? One honest man. I'll lie, I'll kill, I'll cheat, I'll scheme, I'll delude the opposition of the day but I know when I lay down my head I did it because Clint Barton genuinely believes we're building the best future for humanity we can hope for."

"I don't guess I can borrow Clint?" Steve asks, smile as sad but genuine.

Natasha laughs at the absurd question.

"He's not my property."

"So you two aren't…"

"No."

Steve isn't so easily deterred.

"That's a thinking woman's 'No.'"

Natasha swallows her instincts and gives him truth.

"I'm afraid I'll turn him into somebody else, and that would ruin everything," she whispers. She picks her confidence up where she left it. "Now, you. You're down here thinking. What's the next step for Captain America?"

Steve looks away, toward the floor panels with there ID numbers spray painted on.

"I think I've turned into a nihilist. I believed my whole life that there's Right out there in the world – that there's a right thing to do and that that means other people are wrong and that telling them apart is as easy as telling my left hand from my… right. Looking back, I've been _incredibly_ naive. Now I'm asking myself: What's the best future I can hope for?"

Natasha reaches over and rubs comforting circles on his back, mimicking someone more compassionate than she is to soothe him.

"Good luck working that out. I mean it. I've done nihilism. I don't envy anybody being stuck in it."

He looks pained, but he looks grateful.

"Thanks, Natasha."

Her hand stills; now it affects a masculine, brothers-in-arms weight.

"I'll see you at deployment."

Steve nods confirmation.

"I'll be on time."

Natasha leaves him to brood. Dropping down from the pipe she goes to get ready for her second assignment of the morning.

\----

Bruce Banner squints in the bright light of the upper atmosphere as he disembarks from the quinjet that retrieved him from Greece. He waves away the offer of an oxygen mask. When there is little oxygen for him to breathe, the almost infinite energy within him effortlessly sustains his cells.

Natasha is there to meet him when he steps inside, stirring up nostalgia of his first trip to the Helicarrier. Bruce's intuition tells him it's because nobody else stood up at the chance to welcome a man who was, until yesterday, a carrier of _Variola_. It was on his skin, under his fingernails, and in the saline and oil of his eyes.

Natasha isn't fearless, but fear has never stopped her from acting.

"Welcome aboard," she says with a smile.

"Thanks," he says, returning the smile. "I hear there are some more aliens I need to punch."

"Plenty," Natasha promises as they head down the hallway. "How was decontamination? Big guy give you any trouble?"

The question is so familiar and so genial that for a second his mind's tricked into thinking he's come back home. It only brings back the familiar worry that his teammates – his friends – are too accepting for long stays to be safe.

"It turns out Lysol is more of a gentle astringent," he says. "Climbed in one side of the bath and thirty minutes later climbed out the other. The only thing that would've made it easier on me was a big rubber ducky to help remind me why I was in there when the activity decreased in my frontal lobes."

Natasha puts a hand on his shoulder, looking at him with amused wonder.

He thinks about breaking that hand off at the wrist, but he doesn't.

"No more big guy little guy talk?"

He grins sheepishly.

"It's a little antiquated at this point, don't you think? I'm okay with talking about Bruce, or the Hulk if you want, sporting various patterns of brain activation."

Natasha grows more serious, lowering her voice as they descend a stairwell.

"How bad is it out there?"

Bruce wets his lips. Even through the anger carried away the worst of what he said and did, he's sick remembering it.

"Everyone's terrified. Leaving their homes to get food can bring death to their doorsteps. Children and parents, husbands and wives are watching each other die. People with the pox on their skin are saying goodbye to friends with black pox. They wheel everyone with black pox away to die together in tents and basements and there's no food and no pain killers to spare to make that any easier on them." He wishes he could put distance between himself and saying it. The pain comes out in his voice. "There're no funerals. People just disappear. The bodies are burned to make sure the infected flesh off the dead doesn't get any further than the furnace. The transmission vector is primarily bodily fluids, but sometimes a big enough load escapes into the air and just bypasses quarantine. I thought I knew nightmares until I went to Greece."

Natasha remains silent, but her eyes betray the conflict she feels thinking of those far-off afflicted she might join any day now.

"Any word on a vaccine?" Bruce asks without hoping.

"No," Natasha says. "The Shi'ar and Asgardians are working with us. Nobody has the technology to touch what Thanos engineered for the Red Skull."

Bruce shakes his head.

"So, I'm betting I'll find out who the Red Skull is when I'm briefed. There's nothing about this I'm looking forward to."

\----

"Look at you, copping my style," Rhodey teases from inside War Machine.

Iron Man is bristling with guns. It's all appropriated SHIELD weaponry. The blacks and greys fail to compliment Iron Man's ostentatious color scheme.

"Don't get used to it. This is _not_ style. I feel like a Japanese model kit. That said, I will be scheduling a photo shoot in the near future to show solidarity with Nippon as they endure quarantine."

War Machine's flight surfaces ripple through their start up routine, metal sliding against metal, flaps raising and lowering.

"You say it's not style, but the fact that you've built these Japanese model kits says otherwise," Rhodey says.

Iron Man's plating is identically mobile. Mechanical whirring fills the hanger bay.

"An entire subculture built around flying robots with advanced weaponry? Yes. I have studied their one-eighth and one-sixth scale figures and expensive animated battle sequences. Science fiction is the birthing grounds of science. See my shoulder: TVTropes calls this a Macross Missile Massacre. I was surfing YouTube and I said 'They're right. I can make multiple rocket launchers really, really tiny. It's perfect.'"

"I tuned out over half of that," Rhodey says.

Tony smiles within Iron Man's helmet. Rhodey can't see it, but he bets Rhodey knows it's happening.

"When we're together I feel this deep bond that we share. Sometimes I think we're one soul in two bodies."

"Think whatever you want as long as you lay off trying to keep stuff in my pockets."

"Um. _Our_ pockets."

Rhodey is unmoved.

"Busy running diagnostics, Tony. Lots and lots of diagnostics. All of them."

"Where would I be without my straight man?" Tony muses fondly. "–mostly straight man. We both remember that special bottle of Patrón." 

"Running diagnostics and also listening to music," Rhodey declares.

Tony takes a seat and follows his best friend's lead, eyes scanning the reports Jarvis is producing, quadruple checking the new weapons systems are fully integrated with the operating system. Both Iron Man and War Machine are still except for the rotation and loading and unloading of guns and the opening and closing of missile bays.

\----

Iron Man and War Machine take their seats with Thor, the Bruce and Steve as the quinjet lifts off, their armor awkward in the limited space, Hawkeye in the pilot's seat and Natasha flying as co-pilot beside him.

"I understand why they do those big sendoffs during troop deployment, now. Lights a fire under you. Gets your blood pumping. It nurtures a sense of community before the inevitable dismemberments," Tony says, helmet raised.

"I'm planning on us all coming back in one piece," the captain says, looking earnestly at each of them. "I don't want to see anybody taking stupid risks. The Hulk will be out there this time breaking up their ranks. Let's focus on exploiting openings in their defense. If one goes down, don't let it get up again."

"Back of the pack, picked off by wolves," Tony says with a grin.

"None need be ashamed if nervous before our coming engagement," Thor says. "I, for one, look forward to this battle."

"I'm not nervous. You're nervous," Tony says. Thor's expression is quizzical in place of offended. "About Loki," Tony amends, "and I'm sure he's doing fine."

The god frowns, looking away toward the ashy sky ahead of them.

"You do not know what he has walked into."

"Do we have any way of knowing if Loki… doesn't succeed at this?" Bruce asks as tactfully as he can, considering the question. "It seems like there's a lot resting on his plan working out."

"Heimdall will inform us should Loki fail to take Jötunheimr," Thor says tonelessly.

"Coming up on the drop zone," Natasha warns.

The Avengers get to their feet, arranging themselves in some kind of order – Thor, then Bruce with Iron Man and War Machine, carrying Steve, waiting to take off last.

"Give 'em hell, guys," Clint says over his shoulder.

The hanger door lowers. They wait for Natasha's 'Go.'

**(Then: Avengers Tower)**

A Skrull, in its natural form, is green skinned with small eyes, a high stub nose, a prominent chin with thick, ribbed flesh and ears twice as large as a human.

Possessed with the power to freely change their shape, a Skrull rarely looks like a Skrull. When an inhabited planet is discovered and deemed ripe for conquest, scout warriors establish long term residence and complex false identities, routinely reporting back to Throneworld.

When their Emperor orders a full scale invasion, Skrulls come in secret to the planet, seeding themselves everywhere in the place of the powerful and well positioned. With the rest of an army waiting to provide support, the invasion begins. Key power structures – whether physical or political – are simultaneously disabled planet-wide. A full force Skrull invasion remains only partially detectable, the race continuing to steal identities and play the roles of soldiers and civilians. 

In their eager attempt to take Planet Earth, a target increasingly boasting arc reactors that generous producing nearly cost-free energy with a race upon it technologically advanced enough to serve as slaves, one Skrull even took on the role of an indisposed Captain America.

That choice proved their unmaking. Feathered Shi'ar Empress Lilandra Neramani's forces appeared in Earth orbit, battle-hungry and vengeance driven – a Skrull agent freshly discovered as the agitator that pitted the Shi'ar empire against the Empire of the proud, militaristic Kree. When they freed Captain America from scientific investigation on a Skrull warship, they won equal knowledge of Earth's institutional resources through direct contact with SHIELD.

Steve's double had already been slain.

Steve looks around the room at the relaxed but battle-weary Avengers spread out over Tony's furniture. Some have drinks, mixed or straight. Uniforms have been shucked. Tony is in sweatpants and socks, arc reactor bright in his bare chest. He scratches the shaved skin beside it between sips of scotch. Natasha is barefoot in long negligee sewn from solid, mint-colored silk except for the embroidered lace top that leaves plenty to the imagination. She's wearing matching knickers underneath it, banishing any indecent thoughts. Her hair is pinned back with bobby pins like Steve's mother's used to be. Her toenails are painted red like chili peppers. 

Clint is a loose t-shirt guy, wearing shorts, relaxed posture casting him inconspicuous. Completely unremarkable. That's saying something since Clint would never been called an unattractive guy. For Steve, he might as well have 'spy' written all over him. Steve pulled on his cotton pants and white tee. Bruce is a little more conservative, knit top and dark khakis – always dressed like he's about to walk out the door.

Thor is the surprise. He's in jeans, an undershirt and flannel. His long, braided hair and uncommonly large body says 'Asgardian', but that's it. They could have picked him up from any truck stop in America.

It's domestic. Not married domestic but brothers and sisters domestic. 

"When did you guys figure out it wasn't me?" Steve asks.

Clint takes no time answering that.

"He didn't curse."

Tony raises his glass in agreement.

"We think it watched your old movies and read your interviews. It was thorough, it had the inflections down, but no cussing."

Steve can't help getting embarrassed.

"I didn't realize that was a defining feature."

Natasha, legs tucked under her on the couch, drinking straight vodka, shrugs.

"You aren't Clint or Tony, but you're not a saint, either."

Thor drinks from his beer stein, imbibing for the flavor. He was unable to pass up the novelty of the thing Tony produced for him, scenery carved into its sides, richly painted. He looks upon Steve with laughter in his eyes.

"I myself am rarely moved to invective," he claims. "—if I am angry enough for strong language I am more likely than not already physically engaged with the object of my aggression."

"True story: I'm not nominating _you_ for sainthood, either," Bruce says.

Steve grins at their banter. He's drinking soda, but then he can't get intoxicated whether it's alcohol or caffeine. Admittedly, he hasn't tried the stuff Thor drinks.

"I better not make an effort to cut back. You'd pin me for a clone again."

Tony whines, real loud.

"Nuh-uh. No more. No more shapechangers, doubles, doppelgangers – no costumes. I'm cancelling Halloween. That was my limit for the rest of my life," Tony says.

Steve's spirits lift further.

"How about I cook us dinner?"

"After the week we've had, especially you, you deserve a break. We can do take-out," Bruce says.

Steve sticks to his guns.

"No, guys. I want to. I like cooking. I want to cook."

After his parents died and once rationing started doing a lot with a little became a way of life.

Steve told the truth, but skipped detailing his motives. Once in the kitchen he pulls resources from the refrigerator and cabinets, telling the ovens to set themselves where he wants them and getting to work on a meat loaf with string beans and scalloped potatoes. Cooking for the Avengers is basically like cooking for a small army the way Tony, Bruce and, most of all, Thor can pack it away.

What Steve really wants is the time to himself to grin like a nut. He's not ready to let go of the sense of belonging he's enjoying right now.

It wasn't long ago he couldn't see himself fitting into the modern world. He might be a fast learner with an eidetic memory so it wasn't information overload that bogged him down – it was the pace modern Americans lived at. The more of the twenty-first century he saw the more awestruck he became watching people with attention spans of three minutes dividing their time up between endless empty fillers. Despite a mandate, trying to make connections wore him out.

Steve thinks of Peggy, his hand in her own lotion-soft hand as she sat by the window in the assisted living facility, wrinkled face half-lit with sunlight – her skin sagged into folds by time.

They danced there on the carpet to what Peggy explained was an MP3 player attached to speakers. He worked out she listened to modern music, but for that hour it filled the room with the familiar strains of popular songs from their heyday. He kissed her, but when their lips parted she told him: "It won't be long for me. Visit me, Rogers, but live among the young." He asked her if that was an order. She smiled her familiar smile and said, "Not today – but it's a wish."

Now Steve is a permanent resident of Avengers Tower. It's good and it's different to have a home. It's been a long time since he could say he had one of those. After the deaths of his parents nothing felt like the right place anymore except the military service for so long just out of his reach that had structured his mother and father's lives. The camaraderie he shares with the Avengers brings back what he had what seems like only yesterday with the Howling Commandos.

Everybody comes and goes, despite the busy lives led by the Avengers. Natasha and Clint are away undercover, Bruce can only stand cities for so long, Tony gets caught up in the lab. Thor's the only missing element, spending his time in Asgard, great company though he is. Steve has spent time and made a good friend of Pepper Potts. He's started to feel close to Jarvis, too, even if Jarvis is a computer. He has regular lunches with Col. Rhodes – at least, after Tony's initial fit of jealousy blew over. 

_"How long have you been my friend?" Rhodes asks while Tony stands defiant, hurt and defensive in the living room, positive Rhodes and Steve hitting up a restaurant behind his back was a knife buried between his shoulder blades._

_The wounded engineer with two friends in the world grudgingly does the math._

_"We met in 1986. I undermined every other meaningful relationship in your life by 1988."_

_Rhodes makes soothing gesture with his hands._

_"Steve's not going to overcome fourteen years of codependence with a couple of lunch dates."_

_Steve offers gives Tony a puppy-dog smile._

_"Tony, I don't think I'm physically capable of buddying up to best friend status with somebody three ranks above me. Especially when now I'm just an honorary captain."_

_Recently, Col. Rhodes stepped up from his oak leaf and earned his eagle. Steve can't compare his few years of military service with the decade and a half Rhodes has spent and all the honors he's accrued. He can't even break salute when Col. Rhodes enters a room until Rhodes' say-so._

_Steve read every book there was to read on the US Armed Forces before they finally let him in. The Air Force branched off from the army after he hit the ice, but a colonel is a colonel. Steve hangs on Rhodes' stories from his long history of service like he's sixteen and Col. Rhodes is a superstar._

_Steve feels sympathetic, expression offering apology to Tony and the proverbial olive branch of friendship._

_Rhodes places his hand on Steve's chest, speaking serious._

_"Don't make eye contact. He's like a vampire. If you make eye contact the only way to escape is to stake him through the arc reactor."_

_Tony rolls his eyes._

_"God, Rhodey, don't tell_ everyone. _"_

Regardless of how fleeting the contact, every one of them is serious about the lives they live. Steve wants and need to be around people like this. There's a lot he'll give – he'll give _everything_ – to protect Americans' rights to live life in three minute intervals, but he wouldn't want to do it alone.

And, damn it: They know him.


	8. Chapter 8

**(One Night Later: Jötunheimr)**

Upon his first night alone in the chambers now his, where within a carved pit snow is piled at night for him to rest, and this second night, too, Loki returns to flesh and manhood out of sight of his subjects, though the blue cast remains upon his skin.

The need to breathe and the beating of his heart are soothing to him. He has realized to his horror that once the Cask worked upon him it shattered Odin's spell. A Jötunn's body became his natural shape. His sex organs are no longer native to him. He yearns to shift out of the hated form completely, but gathering energies for his transformations takes time. 

If he distances himself from the full brunt of Aurgelmir's potency, regaining this mockery of his Áss form takes only a little.

When apart from the Jötnar, despite his spite for his own body, he can no longer hold at bay reflections on what was wrecked upon Jötunheimr by the Æsir and his own spite during Asgard's political turmoil. He has no love for the frost Jötnar, but neither did he fathom them more than brutes or their motivations other than base and violent.

Any thought of the narrowness of face and sharpness of features that connect himself, Laufey, and Býleistr sends nausea shuddering through him. Býleistr is not so unlike him in pride and the young Jötunn spoke plainly but intelligently while apprising Loki of both the prospects and potential pitfalls bound up with his new kingdom. Loki can segregate no objective detail by which he is definitively superior to the youth.

Mephisto's appearance is a blessing; that by itself is enough to convince Loki he's entwined himself in an unmanageably distasteful situation. Though wearing the same narrow human frame as when Loki saw him last, he is in Jötunn costume today, helmeted, plated skirt hanging from his hips, arms decorated with gauntlets and a single arm ring and feet bare but shins hugged by greaves.

"You have attained all you wished. How sorry that you should look so despondent about it," Mephisto says, smiling like a devil with an offensively thorough grasp of the facts. 

Loki maintains stoicism, his ire restricted to his gaze.

"I knew you had a certain intimate knowledge of Jötunheimr from how perfectly you crafted it this citadel upon the astral plane and your confession that you for a time took the Cask of Ancient Winters for yourself. I knew you left omissions when you shared with me your knowledge. Your compulsions assured them cruel."

Mephisto feigns a moment of thought, poised holding his chin, a pout upon his scarlet lips and his eyes all worry.

"It had slipped my mind to mention that the frost Jötnar regard your father, Thor and yourself as creatures out of nightmare and the Æsir terrible reapers who would not stop at repelling their forces alone but followed on their heels to decimate their entire civilization," he admits, smile rebounding. "Retrospectively, that information might have been of aid to you… except that when I go about installing a dictator, there comes a point where my candidate must fly or fail on his own."

Loki paces across the floor to the demon. Punching him, Mephisto's head snapping sideways, is not completely satisfying, but he considers it a start. 

"I came here expecting gentle lovemaking," Mephisto taunts as he corrects his head, grin showing teeth.

"Divest yourself," Loki commands with all the royal arrogance of his upbringing.

The devil makes short work of his few garments. Metal clatters against the stone floor as he dispenses with one accoutrement after another. Loki bares himself with equal disregard for exposing naked skin; his hatred for the skin he reveals is not on account of modesty. They are still playing a game, and again it is the one that better suits Loki than Æsir roughhousing: won by wounds to pride and integrity.

Mephisto's naked body has only what mortal features the devil had remembered to wear when he last visited Loki. His almost hairless, but his cock resting among pubic curls; he lacks a belly button but is possessed of two black nipples. His fingertips are razor sharp.

"Hands behind you," Loki prompts. Mephisto obeys. Loki walks behind him. He concentrates his energies, ice forming first at the devil's wrists and climbing his arms with the snapping sound of crystals compounding crystals. He murmurs to himself the charm of fettering, focusing its energies upon his creation, infusing it with durability. "That, I think, will hold against all but the most concerted of efforts," he says.

Vitriol flaring up Loki kicks Mephisto at the joint of his knee, the jarring impact dropping the devil to kneel on the stone floor. The darkest parts of Loki are steeped in satisfaction. _That_ is far more rewarding than a punch.

There is nothing else in life that approximates a willful being kneeling in supplication.

"You think yourself such a clever boy," Mephisto says, eyes following Loki as the Jötunn circles around to his front.

"I know I am a clever boy," Loki says, affecting a frown and a look of pity. 

Their eyes like corrupted pairs of red and yellow jaspers meet. Two things are clear to Loki:

The first is that his victory this bout will be handily be won. Mephisto by his self-obsessed nature is bound to rebel at submission. 

The second is that the devil's indulgence is an investment. Vain or not, Mephisto could not have endured since time began if his craving for excitement had the power to overwhelm his better sense. No. Should the world not end and lest Loki thwart him, Mephisto must mean to collect depraved returns on his generous acquiescence.

Loki takes his own cock in hand, stroking and teasing it to fullness, trailing his thumb in a circle around its crown to push the foreskin from it as it stiffens. His arousal comes from the pleasant thought that Mephisto's pride will none other than force him to watch Loki caress his own flesh at his leisure. He is displeased with the ugliness of his own erection, the colors of suffocation: the shaft dark and dusky like the beginnings of frostbite, veins darker yet, and its head a pale, damp blue. Despite his revulsion, excited by lust for dominance it soon enough stands erect above his two firm, hairless balls.

Loki reflects, albeit briefly, on how quickly he becomes hard for Thor, the excitement as fresh as the first time Thor fellated him after all these months. This, on the other hand, is business, and balancing power against power. There will be pleasure, yes, but the pleasure meaningless.

Disgusted in all ways, he pulls Mephisto onto his knees and face to face with his manhood by the devil's unruly mane. Mephisto flashes his teeth but, pushing it to a more amenable position with nose and cheek and the slithering grasp of his long tongue, pulls it into his mouth without drawing blood. To Loki it is to be engulfed in hot coals; to Mephisto, Loki thinks, just the opposite: a shock of ice.

The god grows fascinated by the devil at his service, Mephisto rocking on his knees, undulating his body with the grace of a cobra and allowing his mouth, cheeks sunken in with suction, to glide over Loki's hard cock. 

Whatever else, Loki will not later accuse the devil of withholding his best effort.

Loki intuits Mephisto has nursed no creature's sexual organs in decades or even centuries. The creature's performance is an aesthetic delight and there is nothing amateur about the approach, yet the devil's countenance betrays slight concentration.

Mephisto's well-sized cock is following Loki's suit, whether out of attraction or solely by his will. 

Repelled at the thought of being seduced, Loki takes closer hold of the devil's head and pumps hips, cock hitting the back of Mephisto's mouth with each jab until that is too little and easy an intrusion. Spiteful, he pushes his erection into Mephisto's throat, perversely pleased with the burning hot, slippery softness of that hidden sheathe of skin.

Mephisto needs no air but Loki feels his body heat ratchet aggressively higher as Loki pushes and drags his cock through his esophagus slowly and relentlessly, making certain the devil feels its shape and every ridge. Loki focuses on matching Mephisto's body with his chill. He imagines himself in Mephisto's position: his favorite of organs, his vocal folds, obstructed by someone else's organ of pleasure. When it's his victim suffering what he would detest, it puts a smile on his lips.

"As Thanos once said to me: If it doesn't injure your body and your pride, you're probably not getting the _point_ of the lesson," Loki says.

Rage and agony suddenly overtake him.

_Loki has collapsed onto his knees, mind afire from his early, unsuccessful attempts at using the scepter to astrally project._

_The Titan places the booted ball of one great foot upon Loki's hand and bears down upon it until the pressure becomes pain. Loki hears fingerbones crack._

_"Is your head clear now?" the Titan demands of his disciple._

_"Yes," Loki whispers, lucid but agony-wracked as he curls his tortured fingers, forcing them to obey his will through the splitting pain._

_The Titan smiles._

_"Try again."_

Loki recognizes abruptly that he is sorely mishandling Mephisto. He is holding the devil's lips flush to his hips and his thrusts are short and punishing; his fingertips dig into Mephisto's skin like a vise. He unceasingly radiates great cold.

He relents; hauling back Mephisto's head; pulling his spit-soaked cock from the devil's throat. He sets Mephisto loose but not 'free.'

Wearing an angery expression, Mephisto swallows several times in succession as if he can dispel the stretched and bruised feeling of his esophagus.

"I lost time," Loki says, not an apology but acknowledgement.

"You are mere fragments of a man," Mephisto says with a sneer.

Rage misshapes Loki's face. Grasping Mephisto's upper arm he hauls him to his feet. He drags the stumbling devil to his pit of a bed. Mephisto makes an ugly hissing sound as he is thrown, falls, and lands on his side.

"Better a man at all than one primeval thought vacantly pursuing desires it will never fulfill," Loki gloats.

Loki steps down into the snow. Already it is thawing from the heat of the devil's body. He clamps a hand on Mephisto's shoulder and rolls him over onto his back. The thick, mystically fortified shackles elevate his torso, his head and legs hanging at each end. His high hips leave his lower body open to Loki's gaze.

At least there's something to fuck. Loki had considered alternatives if Mephisto forgot that detail.

Loki's fingertips trace Mephisto's features, every accentuation designed to prey on human fears. They are not Loki's fears, and better he locked him in this form. He would fuck whatever depraved thing Mephisto conjured up, but instead the devil is captured in human guise, capable of little defiance.

"We both understand it is a redundant passion spent upon your captives and inferior astral creatures," Loki says. "I surmise that whatever else you plot, you are here with me tonight because all your depraved acts have enslaved you to maintaining your monotonous high. How empty an existence it is at the top."

"You should begin with the human Jung and advance to the human's present theories on psychoanalysis. There is a famous man who taught Jung named Freud, but he was wrong about many things. They match your obsession with deconstructing minds," Mephisto says in idle tones, shifting his discomforted corporeal body under Loki's frigid touch. Loki plays the mimic, reaching across Mephisto to toy with the edge of one large ear, letting the chill penetrated the thin flesh.

Loki smiles, predatory and empowered.

He silences Mephisto, pressing his lips to the devil's. He can taste himself on Mephisto, although faintly. The devil tastes as good as he smells, a panoply of sinful spices. In no time Loki is drinking deeply from the kiss, tongue engulfed in gustatory hedonism where minutes before his cock had been pounding, in the depths where he tastes his influence most potently.

His good work and the extravagant flavors enjoyed, their lips part, saliva strung between them. Loki drops his hand from Mephisto's ear, sliding it down the devil's abdomen. His palm pulses arctic cold. Once again Mephisto heats to match him. The bed is full of shallow water and that water hot enough to melt the rest of the snow.

Loki hooks his black fingernails into Mephisto's abdomen and drags them up the devil's body. Mephisto's muscles flinch and spasm at the sub-zero cold spreading under his skin. With his other hand Loki caresses the devil's hair as if soothing a troubled pet. Mephisto bares his teeth a second time but surrenders no sound of complaint. Loki sympathizes with the instinctive aversion to being handled like meat, even consensually, but he is preoccupied with the privilege of having a captive that won't escape him, and pursues more of the same on account of Mephisto's distaste.

He grins to himself, taking the liberty of inspecting his prisoner's face. His touch is no longer frozen, but is firm. He pushes the devil's lip up with his thumb to study the elongated teeth and pushes aside, too, Mephisto's eyelid, seeing the devil's eyes are dry as stones. The small black pupils are no more than decorative.

At the end of this prelude he leans in, biting Mephisto's cheek, dragging its soft skin together – pinched by sharp, uneven ice. Loki doesn't tear the devil's scarlet flesh from his skull, but knows that he could and would not consume it but leave an ugly gap in his prisoner's tailored features.

Teeth fastened tight, he traces his thumb down one soft trough of Mephisto's throat, breaching the skin with the pressure of his thumbnail, his pulse racing at his own dangerous power. 

Loki is realms away from any desire to be made tame. Relinquishing his tooth-hold on the Mephisto's cheek he straddles the devil's waist, knees relaxed in the water, letting Mephisto bear his weight. His erection stands in contrast to Mephisto's abdomen. A part of him wishes the devil terrified: eyes wide with panic, so profoundly overwhelmed that the realization of his own helplessness obliterates any thought of resistance.

Mephisto cannot be wrought into such victim as that. The devil watches him with lidded eyes, suspicious and pridefully resentful, ichor leaking from his neck, running off it to drip into the water below. His body lies at ease.

Loki leans down, palms resting flat on the devil's chest. He pours his power into him. Rime forms and as it creeps across the skin away from Loki's palm melts, little rivulets of water, too, run along the contours of Mephisto's body.

"How meager your self-control, so used to getting every little thing you desire. When my own temper is short I should heed your pathetic example and decline to rage within, unable to accept my circumstances," Loki muses.

Mephisto's eyes are rapt to Loki's, expression spite and fascination.

"I will not disguise that my desire to gorge your eyes out with my thumbs and flay the skin from your racked body is getting me hot."

Loki cups Mephisto's head in one hand and opposite of it begins caressing with his tongue and biting sharply at his skin. His cold, wet, slippery organ strokes the innermost curves of the devil's ear. Without warning his teeth snap down hard enough to draw black blood, giving the flesh a fierce tug. A wave of something difficult to define passes through him when his tongue meets that fluid.

He moves down, fingers trailing over burning skin until he finds his next hold: the devil's shoulder. Emboldened he sinks his sharp teeth into Mephisto's breast. A greater font of inky blood wells from this wound, its stench sulfurous, overcoming the veneer of luxurious scents. Loki sucks it from his teeth only to be sent reeling with visions of deformed, impossible monsters and deafened by the wet, torn-throat screams of creatures that may have once been human. Depraved desires – unutterable perversities – swarm his thoughts and only slowly pass.

"Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell," Mephisto exults.

Knowing he entertains a disastrous idea before he takes it, Loki shrouds his chamber even more thickly in obfuscating illusions, ensuring none can scry him and no sound escape. He lowers his mouth to the wound, again, sucking a mouthful of the foul poison from the wound.

—when conscious of himself, again, the water has turned to ice around them save the oblong hole where Mephisto's heat repels it. Ice coats every surface of his chambers, the ceiling and walls. Loki sees double, eyes rolling in their sockets. He heaves for an air through a throat sore, he suspects, from screaming. In places Mephisto has yet to reheat stabs of Aurgelmir's bitter cold darken the devil's frostbitten skin. Loki's black nails have everywhere carved ragged-edged, deep furrows in Mephisto's skin like butcher's cuts as he grasped for equilibrium; two even more brutal bite wounds bleed on Mephisto's body. The water and ice is stained black.

Loki grins a lunatic grin, mouth filled with the bitter taste of sulfur. The dark energy torn fissures in his mind are torn to their widest. Answering fervor for sin gushes forth, flooding the space left as Hell's energies retreat.

"I will be no further broken; not by Thanos and not by you."

Mephisto is visibly incredulous, eyeing Loki as if uncertain the blood has fully relinquished its influence or if he will be delivered further depraved assaults.

"No," the devil agrees slowly. "I can see that if untempered derangement is your lot." His look of disquiet becomes one of conceited cheer. "From where I'm lying, your future looks bright."

Mind teetering between impulses to commit newly learned, disgusting yet exhilarating acts of violence and the decision to seal his contract with the devil, Loki acknowledges he has indeed carried the victory in this game of wills. That knowledge empowers him, for when he thinks of Thanos he does not revisit earlier terrors. He has received revelation of how many worse tortures exist than for his body to be broken and mind twisted by a cosmic thug. He thinks of Thanos, but no further than his aspiration to ensure the Titan's destruction.

His cock has softened in the time lost on the astral pathways of Mephisto's Hell, but with attention from his hand and as his eyes wander the mutilated body he sits atop, still marked by all the cold burns and wounds he wrecked upon it, his cock stiffens obediently with the excitement of his trespasses as much as arousal.

He slides down to kneel between the devil's thighs and uses a little of the ichor-stained water to wet his erection and Mephisto's body, too, wishing to draw this out no longer. He scant cares beyond that, and reaching up to grasp Mephisto's shoulder a second time, he pushes his cock inside the devil's fiery body. It is moments before he finds ways to clutch at him that allow his hips to thrust with force.

"What would Thor say if he saw you now?" Mephisto asks as sweetly as a devil is capable of.

Loki expected the question – everyone is fond of that question. He laughs.

"Before the argument over what constitutes fidelity? The first thing—… The _very_ first thing he would say would surely be 'Loki, stop torturing that devil!'" His nails scrape Mephisto's abused skin in punctuation. His smile gentles even as his hips pound harder, the shallow water sloshing and Mephisto's captive, destroyed body strained beneath his strength. His voice grows breathless. "He is unyieldingly noble, and I deserve him. I spent my two thousand years of life doing else but mending disasters he left in his wake. And now, at any price, I will preserve him."

"Love," Mephisto mutters in disgust. 

Loki understands his revulsion better than before. The power of Mephisto's Hell scalds souls clean of independence and personality. Such forces likewise sought to scour Loki's mind when that pit of primordial evil engulfed him only to break upon cosmic energies' foundational claim. When achieving absolute subjugation is as necessary to a creature's continued existence as food and air is to others, then Loki imagines love in all its forms becomes a particularly stubborn impediment to a devil's purpose.

Loki allows his thoughts to unravel, feeling the ichor slowly oozing from Mephisto's wounds slick on his skin in place of sweat and the furnace of Mephisto's resentment everywhere their bodies touch; he sees the piercing but thwarted desire to eviscerate, dominate – ultimately own him – in those yellow eyes.

He comes. It is not even a shadow of the overwhelming pleasure with which his brother gifts him. His guard never recedes.

As the brand sealing Mephisto's obligation, however, it fulfills its purpose.

Mephisto's bonds instantly shatter. The devil moves quickly and violently and, mind still fogged from his release, Loki fails to resist being grappled. He has time only to go limp before his body's crippling collision with the ice-coated wall. The crystalline matrix is crushed to pieces upon impact: a sound like breaking glass. As he lies in pain with broken bones among shards of ice, Loki can barely reckon the vast difference between an enraged Mephisto's strength and the deceased Gangr's. Memories of the Hulk breaking Stark Tower's floor with him filter from the past.

Loki calls Aurgelmir's power into him, discarding the flesh, transitioning to an organless, asexual thing, eyes on the devil. Mephisto has no contractual obligation not to leave him beaten senseless, but the frowning devil is taking vain stock of his rent flesh, now. A wave of fire runs over his body, restoring its integrity.

"That _was_ an invigorating change of pace. Not one I intend on enjoying again anytime soon," Mephisto says with a courteous smile. "I look forward to telling your brother all about it while I play host to him."

"Because Thor has never been murderously angry with me before," Loki drawls, rolling his red eyes. It is a problem, but it isn't a problem for here and now. "You should return to padding after Thanos before he suspects treachery."

Mephisto sniffs in disdain.

"Thanos' life is making war. He expects treachery from everyone. It's who has the best hand when it comes time to show our cards that is our only concern."

Loki, befuddled, makes a face.

"What?"

"—poker," Mephisto says dryly. That explains nothing so he produces: "It's a human game involving bluffing. Never you mind, dear colleague."

Loki is far from assured by Mephisto's pleasantries that he, himself, is not the one the devil is bluffing against, but that matters not at all compared to Thor being rescued from attempting something as noble as it is fatal.

When the devil has gone, Loki realizes he has been left Jötunn attire of an appropriate size.

**(Four Days Later: Agentina)**

The appearance of the frost Jötnar army sends a riot of excitement through the camps. Soldiers spread the news in a mélange of dialects of Spanish and Portuguese – depending on if they deployed from the south or far west. Thor understands there are other countries in the northeast through which spread the pox. As comes naturally to the elder races, he by now apprehends much of their common speech.

The Devourers' arrival is no surprise. SHIELD spread the word of these potential allies early to stave off soldiers firing on these desperately needed reinforcements.

With the battlefronts decided and the armies of Earth's nations deployed, agents of SHIELD are on the ground, in the camps, lending their advanced weaponry to the fight and the soldiers. Coordinating global communications has fallen from top priority. 

The camp behind and apart from the battlefront where medical and communications services are centralized, an important stop for directing resources intended for soldiers on the frontline, is divided by trampled, tread-marked thoroughfares. Generals and Director Fury debated running a chain link or barbed wire fence around the encampment or enclosing it in earthen or sandbag walls until Thor voiced that the only thing fencing the camp in would do was cut off the soldiers' evacuation routes.

Thor has long known war and understands no one wished to admit how indefensible their position is, choosing to exhaust options choice by choice. 

An earthen wall was erected only in the direction the fire Jötnar are expected to approach from. Men with guns and rocket launchers stand atop it in shifts.

Thor flew here upon news of Loki's arrival. Although his heart already wished for it, Fury was the man who ordered it, saying: "I don't want any shenanigans from your brother."

Thor has a firm grasp of what 'shenanigans' would entail based solely on context.

He is too late to join the meeting of Loki and the heads of the combined South American armies. He waits nearby, not expecting to be needed for intervention but alert should it come to the worst.

Loki exits the tent before all others, two Jötnar of full height flanking him. Loki it must be, but Thor's thoughts falter in shock. He had begun to construct in his head some semblance of a red-eyed Loki with skin of Jötunn blue. This creature is foreign to him. In place of raised skin, ice bristles from him. Of ice he is constructed, joints much like those of the fire Jötnar, crumbling into chips as he moves with lost carapace replaced from an endless font of liquid.

Loki's eyes fall on him. Thor reads betrayal even in so alien a face.

"Loki!" he calls, wishing only for his brother to come to him.

A second shock, this of guilt and self-chastisement, stabs through him. He recalls Loki's impassioned words when he held his flesh and blood brother in his arms so short a time ago. He meets with stunning clarity the errors of his own past that, unless checked, he would perpetuate now and grasps the reality of Loki's position. He drops his eyes to the boot-churned soil, stiffening his posture and approaching Loki not as his brother, or his lover, but as he would approach their father, the king.

He kneels, looking at only his brother's bare, crystalline feet.

"Your majesty, king. I request private audience."

He shivers, not because he has assumed a position of subjugation or because of the chill radiating from the Jötnar but because Loki might choose to refuse him.

"Rise," Loki says.

Thor does, head ducked so not to challenge the Jötnar's king with his greater height. He looks upon Loki, yes, but looks too into the eyes of Loki's retainers, recognizing them as his equals when in the presence of a king, be his heart is sick with ancient hatred.

Loki raises his own chin, never at a loss when playing lord.

"Þjazi Ovaldison, Býleistr Laufeyson, my brother Thor Odinson. My brother even as Býleistr is my brother," he says. He gives them both their moment to digest those words. "Should we three survive, I would make of you sworn brothers that no longer shall Jötunheimr and Asgard war but, as Asgard and Vanaheimr, do commerce as one land. Should I perish, on your honor – though each other you may despise – you will together realize my final wish."

Even the thought is sickening, but Thor will be king. He understands now, in the wake of his exile, as he never understood before that that requires greater wisdom than what little insight emotion offers. He looks up to the towering Býleistr, failing to recognize Loki in him but seeing a little of Laufey.

"On my honor," he swears.

"And mine," Býleistr says, having studied Thor just as long, matching him for hesitation.

Loki gestures toward the distance, addressing his companions impartially.

"Leave me. Carry back to our forces first word of our deployment strategy. I will be a short time behind and, having thought upon it and brought it closer to perfection, open myself to counsel."

Þjazi and Býleistr make obsequious motions and head across the plain where the Jötnar force Thor glimpsed from the sky waits.

Thor and Loki stride away from the camp's thoroughfare, finding some small privacy between tents.

"I appall you," Loki says, before Thor can speak. "I _know_ Thor because _I_ am appalled."

Thor seeks to master his deep-ingrained emotions, wishing to touch his lover but afraid Loki will not welcome it.

"I had known not such a change would be worked upon you. For all the fire Jötnar I have seen, I was singularly unprepared. To offer you no less than the truth, you stun me still, but take not anger with you when we part. We must endure these things only a little time."

Thor does not take a step back but draws back nonetheless, rage so suddenly upon Loki.

"You are a fool, as you ever are. What should the Jötnar think if I am their king for a 'little time' until I have use for them no longer? A deeper enmity we foster in Jötunheimr should I so insult them as to abandon them when I have no more use for their ilk. "

"You speak wisely," Thor says, softened his voice. He regrets his own words. He wonders, too, what Loki has faced in his time away. Thor grapples with that truth. He – however unwisely – speaks from a sudden eruption of emotion alone. "We might summer in Asgard and winter in Jötunheimr as it pleases us."

A smile leaps to Loki's lips, throwing off chips of ice. He cackles in his strange, distorted voice. He assumes a mocking stance, dramatically animated.

"You propose to me without a thought in your head! Oh, _doubtlessly_ that is the foundation of kingdoms everlasting. Thor, you are a marvel. A creature I pray is unprecedented in history but I despair is not."

Thor reels to catch up, and when he has landed on Loki's meaning wishes his emotional piques blinded him less. But would he take it back? Not a word. His heart could not bear his love and his brother departing severed from him – at emotional distance. Loki will rave as Loki raves, but if he is raving his passions are secure.

Thor's vehemence grows.

"And so I propose to you," he says. "If you are ever made of ice for all your days from this day forward, I propose to you. Cold is a small thing."

Loki's fury manifests on his skin as bristling icicles rise jagged upon him with the snap of sudden cold.

"Be gone from me, God of Thunder! Such a suit I will not consider here. Not from an _inferior_. Focus your efforts upon this war and harass me no more. I have Argentina to defend full of your precious, fleshy humans with their insufficient weaponry."

Thor is left alone. He raises neither voice nor hand to stop his brother as Loki masters his posture and sweeps away across the campground, freezing air in his wake and crystals of ice beneath his footsteps that melt under the sun.

\----

At first Steve reminded himself of the suffering people wracked with pox being taken advantage of by these literally heartless monsters which come only to consume. Steve, passionate, found hating less difficult than he would have liked. After days of fighting he was nurses a healthy grudge against the Devourers. There is pleasure in shattering their bodies; for the first time he exults in his own strength.

He has thought of Dr. Erskine the night before Project: Rebirth. Would Erskine see his pact as a betrayal or would he see the sacrifice of Steve's soul as an act that's results would be for the good, though Steve a good man no longer?

Steve grounds himself in the fact that he must have, in an abstract way, hated the solider of Hydra as he slayed them by the dozen. Surely he hated their aims. If free people chose democratic government then who was Hydra to rob them of their elected leaders and force them to compete against their fellows for survival? But he knows in hindsight engaged in self-deception, choosing who the 'bullies' were while crushing with shield and fist and destroying in a barrage of bullets their bodies, values and dreams.

The fire Jötnar are worse. They pour like roaches over the surface of the Earth consuming all life within their maws, be it plant or flesh. What are they but stone – or the molten predecessors of all stone? Like the bedrock of Earth itself risen up in envy of organic life they pour across it's surface stupid with hunger. They prize not love, not camaraderie, not solidarity, not hate, but only what stuffs their crumbling mouths with more fuel for the furnaces inside them.

In days' time he began to leap upon them, the flesh of his palm burned black, gripping their armor or carapace despite the heat, bashing his shield into their necks or the joints of their shoulders until he violently secured detachment. With that he flung himself away, rolling across the dirt, looking at his ruined right hand with its bleeding, cracked skin and its muscle exposed, reminding himself that when faced with Surtr it will be made whole by occult power.

Taking positions away from friends, from comrades and from human company it became intoxicatingly easier to hypnotize himself with this hateful passion amidst the monotony in which he dispatched the Jötnar by hand and shield. 

No longer able to swear himself engaged in a noble fight for the redemption of humanity, as hours dragged into days violence alone persisted. In a giddy haze he was privileged to think of no more than the ruin of those that oppose him.

When he first hears the order to return to camp it is ignored. He continues to shatter the crusts of his enemies, ecstatic as a berserker. When ordered a second time he relents, extracting himself from the battle and trudging toward forward camp.

" _Damn,_ Steve, your hand," Clint says when Steve reports to the tent under which the Avengers have assembled – Hulk with his head ducked and an expression of deep concentration on his green face.

"Forget it, Clint. I heal," Steve dismisses. His knuckles are leaking blood. There are broken bones. If it is all for nothing – only an evil trick – then he'll be a long time recovering. If it isn't, he thinks as he sobers, then as the first nourishment of unchecked anger within him, his results were perversely admirable.

"The demon Thor and Loki call Surtr showed himself," Natasha reports. Thor stands unflinching. Loki must be away with his army.

"Where at?" Steve asks.

"China," Rhodes says. "Right in the thick of the hottest combat zone."

"He makes a statement," Thor says. "He comes not to North or South America where the fighting is less pitched for the ground more open but explodes into the most violent of contests. He fears us not. He wishes to humble us in the face of his might."

"Then we're packing up and taking the fight straight to this guy's face," Tony says, looking between them all.

"That's the word from on high," Natasha says. 

"With Loki and his forces here to support the South American armies, they should be well armed to continue the fight while the Avengers join the armies of Asia in battle against Surtr," Thor says.

Steve heats up at the thought, so suddenly and with such strange disorientation it forces him wonder if it's the intrusion of Mephisto.

"Come on people," Steve says. "Let's get on the quinjet. The sooner we take down Surtr the faster this war is over. We better trust that Thanos wants Surtr to take us awhile."

Bruce achieves subsiding in size before entering the quinjet. Tony is restless, punching his fist into his glove or pacing the bay of the aircraft. Rhodes, used to these waits, travels in professional stoicism, although as Steve's friend he casts a few long, concerned looks. Thor asks if he may see Steve's hand.

"Is there anything we can do?" Thor murmurs, grimacing as pressure against the flesh floods its cracks with clear liquid – all white blood cells.

"No," Steve says, and lies: "If you leave it alone the serum will kick in faster."

"Possible you overdid it just a little bitty bit Steve-o," Tony says. "Not your bad. Those guys were all over us like yeast extract on disgusting British and Australian toast."

"I in fact like Marmite," Clint fills in from up front.

"Is anybody besides Hawkeye looking to get drawn up on charges of treason?" Tony poses to the bay.

Thor ignores Tony.

"Surtr will pay no heed to the safety of those Jötnar who support him. His sole objective will be to surmount and demolish the most formidable of what stands in their way. I have dueled him when he was backed by a small force alone. He all but forgot those soldiers in seeking to overcome me. His people expect no less of him. They glory in his might. It is his sword which we must at all costs deflect. It cuts deep, burns flesh and leaves wound that heal not. Even Bruce should take care. I suspect you may clap it between your palms, but let it not bite your flesh." 

"Okay. We disarm him – whether we get his arm off or not. I think I can keep that in mind when my prefrontal cortex takes the back seat," Bruce says.

"I think I'll do my best work supporting the light artillery," Natasha says. "I've got a feeling this fight is going to be literally too big for me, woman to giant and giant unphased by my Widow's Bite. I speak Mandarin and Korean and obviously Russian, and I don't exactly want to shoot into your fight with an RPG. Clint's arrows have slim on their side and Tony and Rhodes have the top down advantage."

"Sounds strategically sound," Rhodes says.

With tensions high and every brain running battle plans, no one notices that Steve sits in silence.

**(Now: Asgard)**

The Tesseract is now housed within Jane's physical property measurement system. Darcy gets that Jane has heavily modified it. It's no longer a one-way cooling, temperature-measuring, magnetic field detecting, electricity evaluating device. The device still listens, but now it talks, transmitting electrical and magnetic signals and tweaked for fast changes in temperature. There's a microphone inside and a speaker.

She's square with the fact that Thor and Loki were on the ball when Loki said Jane alone could keep Jane's work going. Now Jane's keeping Erik's work going, too. Darcy doesn't think of Thor as a creeper – at least in the controlling ex-boyfriend way, having sex with his brother _definitely_ counts as creepy. Even so, Darcy prefers that he was more than white knighting.

Darcy wonders if Erik is dead.

She didn't personally anticipate hitching a ride on the rainbow just because she was Jane's assistant. Then came Director Fury, face to face on a viewscreen. Darcy had never spoken to the Director or seen him in real life. Boot cast him more like God – invisible, but always watching from above. She hadn't imagined ever seeing Nick Fury in front of her, but the name on bottom of the screen made it concrete and the eyepatch confirmed it.

_"Director. Wow. –sir."_

_His face doesn't flinch. He doesn't greet her, but moves straight into business:_

_"Considering the special and possibly permanent nature of your deployment to Asgard, I'm detailing your orders personally so there's no misunderstanding."_

_There's a second where Darcy is positive she's on an episode of Punk'd. She swallows her nerves, prompting as politely as possible._

_"My what?"_

_Fury cocks his head to the side. Darcy's training triggers. This is a test. He's testing her._

_Her composure comes hand in hand with the realization._

_"Agent Lewis, what have you been assigned to for the past year and a half?" Fury asks._

_Darcy plays hardball, confessing evenly and seriously, but honestly._

_"A glorified party hostess kind of thing."_

_A nod from Fury._

_"To men and women from Asgard. You_ are _SHIELD's specialist in Asgardian culture, ambassador. Now your job is to make this a smooth transition for everybody."_

 _Darcy imagines from pictures glimpsed an infinite sky, buildings suspended in midair, rows of titanic statues, a palace of gold, a waterfall into infinity. There is no place for Darcy Lewis in tennis shoes_ or _pumps in those pictures._

_Her heart beats fast, but her face keeps its reserve._

_"Director, while I am honored by your selection I have doubts about my qualifications for this assignment."_

_Now Fury shakes his head._

_"I've reviewed your file. You have exceptional decision making skills under pressure. I'm taking an educated risk you'll be exactly who I need when you reappear on the other side of that wormhole. I'll even promise you your biggest hurdle will be survivor's guilt. Say your goodbyes and make what peace you can."_

Director Fury, possibly or possibly not God, was right about everything. Darcy is having trouble keeping her mind on the job. Thoughts of her little brother, Wesley, keep her up when she should be sleeping. She imagines his skin ruined by pustules or worse, gone black: the boy who adores basketball, Magic the Gathering and first person shooters dying a slow, horrible death liquefying inside. She thinks about her parents, too, and her Aunt Janet, her cousins and her grandparents and every human on Earth. The burden of guilt for dodging all danger while leaving them to die is mounting until even her cheer is shaded by a malignant sorrow.

It's Fandral's shift, right now, and seeing her pain the fair swashbuckler makes himself genteel company. His vibrancy translates into reassuring smiles, his blue eyes soft with comprehension. Playfulness may be the most common of his moods, but he is old and it's clear to Darcy he understands fear and sorrow to a depth she has yet to experience. He needed know no more than her teary-eyed explanation of "My family, back on Earth" and since has put the gentle in gentleman.

"So, what is a day in the life of Fandral?" she asks, smile inviting – however sad.

He sits straighter beside her upon the cool floor of the vault, a dashing figure projecting self-pride with a smile.

"I awaken, then at my wash basin and mirror I trim my beard and moustache into the perfect shape you now behold and clad myself in my armor. I dine on the meat of boars, the eggs of birds and fish and bread with honey. After my breakfast I go to the training grounds for a vigorous workout. In these days of imminent danger I comport myself to the vault to relieve Hogun of sentry duty. After I serve my hours I seek my dinner and shower my bevy of admirers with the attention their beauty demands before I again hone my skills. After this, I retire."

"A bevy, huh? I'm a liberated woman. I could be open to threesomes."

The Áss's brows rise in surprise.

"I don't want to misunderstand you," Fandral says.

A grin bursts onto Darcy's lips. She touches her fingertips to the back of his hands. He allows his mystification to show. She remembers riding across New Mexico next to him in Jane's van and making small talk after Thor flew away to the Bifrost with Jane. Nice small talk.

"Your intentions appear straightforward, your approach wholly foreign," he says.

"I can play coy. I'm not Jane—she totally can't."

"Excuse you," Jane says, remaining bent over her laptop.

"What? You can't. You get confused tingly feelings and then you have sex."

"—end of conversation," the other woman states.

Darcy turns her attention back to the object of her flirtation, tracing a circle on the back of his hand with her index finger.

"I would _love_ to get the princess treatment but that's obviously your comfort zone. This is a job for my exotic American flirting." Stroking a line on the back of his hand with a feather-light touch, next she leans back on both her hands, her spirits the highest in days. "I know one crowded van-ride of conversation and an etiquette lesson isn't necessarily the foundation of eternal romance and also you have this thing about women which is why you took the seat next to me, but I'm open to _many_ possibilities."

Fandral laughs. Eyes sparkling with that dilation of the pupils that means Darcy landed her hook, he lowers his voice, leaning nearer would a suave tilt of his head.

"You captivate me, Darcy Lewis. Would I had the liberty to walk the wonders of the Realm Eternal at your side and make such love to you that all my two millennia were my preparation for our first night of passion."

"—oh my _god_ ," Jane says.

Darcy shoots her a look.

"Jane, being seduce by Don Juan here. Commentary not necessary."

"It's _responding_ , Darcy," Jane keeps going at the same pitch. "That was a definite voluntary interaction. Right here. This brand new brand of electro-magnetic fluctuation."

Darcy and Fandral are simultaneously on their feet, flocking to Jane, staring over her shoulder at a screen that is to both of them occult. She points; it means nothing, but her jubilation is contagious.

"The Tesseract messaged my system. All my readings confirm it. We have first contact!"

Darcy's heartbeat is palpable in her breast.

"What's second contact? What do we do?"

"I don't know. We have to establish a frame of reference. It's one thing for it to recognize I'm cueing it and another for us to understand each other. It's been inside Erik and Clint Barton and Loki and Thor. It has to know English, but I don't know if it's literate or if it can see letters in the rest of the noise from the operating system."

Darcy looks at the files stacked feet away on the vault floor. By now, she's had days to read Erik and SHIELD's records for herself. There are facts: Steve watched the Tesseract dissolve Red Skull upon touch. In fact, Red Skull used it to dissolve a few thousand humans on contact before that. Brief contact can confer total telepathic domination. In the aftermath, Erik wrote he felt elation from the Tesseract as she opened the wormhole for the Chitauri. Nobody thinks that's a good thing.

The imperative has been to establish communications without anybody dissolving, a real trick without the other collapsed Cube. 

Darcy takes a deep breath, fear racing through her.

"What if… you typed a sentence and then I put my hand on it and read it out loud? It could put those two together. Assuming it's paying attention, now, and maybe curious and maybe ready to show some moderation."

Jane stares at her, having a rare motherly-big sister moment, all concern.

"There's the 'you could die' part."

Darcy rolls her eyes.

"SHIELD is America's deep science division. Our whole thing is like dying for science."

"Darcy…"

Jane sits back from her screen. She's on her feet and Darcy follows her example. Jane is without her usual fierce determination, her eyes tear-rimmed. She wraps her arms around Darcy, face buried in Darcy's shoulder. Darcy is only startled half a second. She returns the hug and lets it last.

Darcy thinks of how alone Jane is and hugs her friend a little tighter.

"I commend your exceptional valor, Darcy Lewis," Fandral says with gravity when the women part.

Darcy gives them both a smile.

"It's just a little friendly touching. I'll be fine. And if I go all wonky-zombie evil, would anybody bet on me against Fandral?"

She doesn't make them answer that question.

She approaches the PPMS, opening it while Jane crouches to type on her laptop, then rises to show Darcy the screen. Darcy reads the sentence, wetting her lips. At Jane's nod, she lays two fingers on the cube's flawless surface.

She gasps, wincing with surprise as its energy pours into her. She sees the world through a faint sheen of blue. She feels the Tesseract's cautious curiosity in her mind. That sense of wonder creeps into everything, Darcy's natural thoughts stuttering, coming in halting fits, until Darcy thinks in a flash of panic that her mind is coming apart.

The invasion halts. Darcy clumsily tacks her thoughts together, Jane's computer screen swimming in and out of focus.

"We are of Earth and Asgard. The being called Thanos is in pursuit of you. We are here to ensure your freedom—" Darcy swoons on her feet as alien memories flood her, some so tangled she cannot understand the emotion behind them. Pain streaks through her fingers. Her hand lights up ghostly blue. Her body is going up in energy while their minds merge, skin and muscle disappearing like flakes of paint falling away. She rights herself by force of will, speaking over the deluge: "Not like the Skrulls. Not like Red Skull. Not like Loki. We're big on personal liberty." She takes deep breaths, but focuses on Jane's screen again. The Tesseract jolts into three dimensional perception as it recognizes the machine's energy signature. "This is Jane Foster. She researches Einstein-Rosen bridges like the one you can make. Thanos…"

Breaking contact with a scream, Darcy throws her hands over her eyes. Jane sets aside her laptop, grasping her shoulders. Fandral places his hand upon her back. 

"Jane," she says. "Fandral. Jane. He's almost here! She sees him! There's no army!"

"Guards!" Fandral bellows, assuring Darcy is righted before running for the doors of the vault. "Guards!" he calls again; they rush to meet him making double time. "Word to Odin: The Tesseract speaks. Thanos is nearly upon us. He brings no army; we know not from where he flies. Word to Hogun, Volstagg and the Lady Sif – their presence is demanded here with all haste to fulfill their duty to noble Thor."

The guards away, fleet of foot, one dispatched for each task. Heimdall will have heard Fandral's words. News will travel quickly.

Fandral returns to the human women.

He crouches beside the collapsed Darcy. Jane has redirected her attentions to her computer.

"Darcy, will you recover?"

"No worries," she says, voice wavering. "Just had my mind expanded like that one time in high school when— No. Really. I'm fine. I'm not game for round two yet but give me ten."

Fandral examines Darcy and the extent of her injury, checking her eyes for semblance of a concussion or other mental impairment. He gently studies her burned hand. In places her skin has disappeared completely exposing bone and deep layers of flesh. The hollows are bleeding and weeping, but that is a small thing within the scope of current events.

"You guys, I don't think the Tesseract exactly has a plan here. It's on us," Darcy apologizes in place of the Cube.

"One plan coming up," Jane says. "Two or three if we're lucky."

"Is everyone unharmed?" Hogun asks, arriving in full battle raiment.

"We have suffered only a small physical inconvenience, although to the petals of so splendid a flower," Fandral says. "We may not remained unharmed for long, for it is this vault which Thanos seeks."

"We defend the Tesseract at all costs," Hogun says, eyes scanning the vault warily. He walks to the glowing wall behind Jane's equipment, calling: "Destroyer! Prepare yourself for Thanos, the Titan, who comes as Asgard's enemy."

The wall disappears. The four collectively shudder, some less visibly than others. This Destroyer is not much changed in form than that which Loki set upon them. It strides past Jane's equipment and spotlight to the head of the vault, scanning their surroundings, intellect enough within it to carry out its duty.

Volstagg and Sif arrive soon after, skirting the Destroyer to join the others at the Tesseract. Darcy is woozy and hurts at the edges of her dissolved skin where the nerves call out in alarm. She came close to fainting, nudging the cube in the direction of Jane's plan with a second touch. She stands on her feet but is leaning against Fandral, his arm draped across her chest to prevent any sudden topples. The pain and exhaustion don't let her appreciate it.

"We should leave this place with the Tesseract with all haste," Sif says, hand upon her weapon. "How do we intend to transport it?"

"It's going to transport us," Jane say, keyboard clattering under her dancing fingertips. "Communication may be rough, but I've spent two years mapping the path of the Bifrost between Asgard and Earth. The Tesseract has already opened a door from Central Park to Asgard once. There's a good chance it will follow my lead on this one."

Darcy smiles despite her fatigue.

"If it doesn't, we can console ourselves with the fact that we have nowhere to run. If Thanos is as near as I think he is, we'll never make it to the actual Bifrost."

"Darcy's right," Sif says. "None of us know other means to escape Asgard undetected, save Loki, and he is far from us."

"If the need arises, the Warriors Three will fight to gain you time for your escape, Lady Foster," Hogun vows.

Fear shows on Jane's face although she types without stopping. A cold lump sits in Darcy's stomach.

"Thank you, Hogun," Jane says.

"If we knew what half these artifacts were meant for we'd stand a better chance," Volstagg says.

Fandral, who among them listens longest to the skalds, thinks carefully upon it.

"The Orb of Agamotto, the Right Hand of Infinity, the Warlock's Eye, the Eternal Flame and the Tablet of Life. The Eye might be useful, if one of us were a warlock. A dearth of Loki troubles us once more." 

"It doesn't sound like we want Thanos getting his hands on any of those either," Darcy points out, tilting her head back to look up at Fandral.

"We have the means at our disposal should the Destroyer fail and the vault be breached to drop the vault into the abyss below," Hogun says.

"Oh. Oh good," Fandral says. "There we are then. We're saved the effort of pitching all Asgard's treasures off the side because we will plummet with them."

Volstagg slaps the haft of his battle axe against his hand.

"I am the eldest of us all. The Destroyer and I will impede the Titan if Glaðsheimr is o'ercome. We will win you all possible leeway. Unknown dangers await on Earth, and the Tesseract may still need your protection."

"Volstagg…" Sif says. She nods in comprehension, the Æsir sharing a look among them.

Volstagg shakes with laughter, giving his friends a wide grin.

"Mourn me not if I should fall! May I feast in the home of the brave upon mead from a goat's tits and boar!"

"My dear friend," Fandral says. Darcy hears in his words all the love she would speak to her little brother if she only could.

"Should we not meet again until Valhalla, far and wide will I tell your tale," Hogun says.

Jane has that look of concentration on her face that means she isn't hearing a word they're saying anymore. Darcy ticks that off as good. It says the astrophysicist is making headyway.

**(Now: Jilin Province, China)**

The quinjet lands in a green countryside overshadowed by ash and interrupted by plumes of smoke from burning wood and military equipment, all shrouded in inky twilight, the sun's disappearing glow more than half obscured by the horizon. A flare rockets into the sky. Clint follows its trail to a clearing where he can set down the quinjet. The Avengers disembark, Natasha trading rapid Korean with the officers sent to escort them as they walk as a group to a command tent.

The commanding officer speaks English. A map lies unscrolled atop his table plywood table with markers they quickly learn to interpret: Surtr, regiments of his army, Chinese forces identified by flags as are those of North and South Korea and of Russia and Japan.

Steve salivates at the thought of the oncoming fight, restless, flexing his gloved hand against the tightly grasped leather straps of his shield, features narrowed, picturing the lay of the countryside they flew in over as he studies the map.

"Once we go in need the humans out of the way as soon as possible," he says. "It'll get hairy in there, and we'll be trading punches. I don't want to tossed by this guy and end up crushing equipment or a soldier."

"I understand," the CO says, awe in his voice. People worldwide may have heard of the Avengers, but Steve bets this man can't picture putting a fist into what they're up against. 

With War Machine, Iron Man and Thor towing Captain America, Hawkeye and Bruce they soar above the treetops toward the front line, the prosthetics' thrusters bright in the ashy night. Lightning runs jagged through the ash. Thunder rumbles.

Asia's soldiers have set up their artillery between trees high on hillsides, trying to enforce a killing field in the gully bellow where tanks, now within the Jötnar swarm, had formed a first line of defense as the Devourers crested the opposite hill. The underbrush of that hillside smolders, trampled beneath fiery feet. Fresh Jötnar continue to crest it. The magma at their joints throws an unnatural dance of light and shadow through the trees.

Mortars fly from barrels, breaking carapaces and exploding into showers the earth where they land. The fire of automatic weapons cuts staccato through the air. Muzzle flashes light up the dark of the forest below. Those tanks whose canons are not yet melted or crushed fire at will into the Jötnar army, supported by fire from the gunners atop them staving off Jötnar from achieving the vehicles. 

Steve couldn't mistake Surtr for any other demon. This goliath of a Jötunn is knee deep in the tanks, his blazing sword banishes the dark of night across the valley floor; the leaves of the surrounding trees shine orange with it. He slices effortlessly through the tanks composite carapaces and the bodies of the teams within them. The air rumbles with his laughter, a sound to match the thunder. With bare, rocky feet he stomps upon soldiers with impunity. Concentrated gun and artillery fire has no effect; he is forming crust from beneath as quickly as it crumbles beneath the bullets' impact.

Steve needs no additional incentive to get angry. Bruce is ahead of him, falling eight feet tall and green from Iron Man's embrace onto Surtr's back with a roar that shakes the skies. War Machine drops Steve in behind Surtr, while Thor and Hawkeye can be heard on the headsets choosing Barton's drop point against the roar of wind.

Bashing two lesser Jötnar aside with his shield Steve focuses his anger on Surtr. Surtr is disgusting: arrogant, heedless and ugly. _Disgusting,_ he tells himself. To his surprise a new feeling rises in him, exponentially stronger than his earlier first taste – a headrush of the vilest loathing. He adjusts his grip on his shield, letting it come.

 _Disgusting. Mindless. An ugly chunk of rock,_ his brain supplies. The power filling him doubles.

"Steve—" Iron Man says over the headset. "What the _fuck?_ "

Steve notices, now, that he's on fire. It burns sulfurous yellow-orange over his uniform and embraces his shield. His blazing hand has been restored.

"It's fine," Steve hears himself saying, voice rough with rage. "We're gonna crush this piece of trash."

He doesn’t wait for a response. Steve takes off running. The ground disappears under his feet as easily as if he was soaring aloft. The effortlessness of his actions intoxicates him. When he leaps he leaps for Surtr's shoulder, screaming like an animal and bringing his shield down like a cleaver. Rock explodes around him, raining in shards. Surtr stumbles forward even as Steve recoils and falls to the ground, easily landing in a crouch.

Thor voices his own startled exclamation, but the Hulk is clinging to Surtr's surface and punching repeatedly, the collision of his fist like dynamite splitting a mountain.

Steve rolls out of the way of a swing from the giant king rounding on him's sword – away from the strike of the worthless piece of refuse belched from the pits of a malformed planet.

"Captain, what's going on?" Hawkeye's voice says in his ear. He ignores it. A crackle of flame and the earpiece is destroyed. He tosses it aside and readies his shield.

The hot air off Surtr's swings withers the leaves of nearby flora. Nearby Humans are screaming the order to retreat in a mélange of Earth's native languages.

The Humans don't matter. Turning Surtr to rubble matters. Steve can already see the giant as a pile of black gravel in his mind's eye. He lunges, striking sideways with the edge of his blazing shield into Surtr's ankle, set upon making that image reality.

The ground trembles with Surtr's scream. Suddenly the smaller Jötunn are swarming Steve, striking out with their black swords and spears in their black armor.

The hellfire-engulfed shield slices through them as if their hides were no more than soft flesh. Steve's free fist staggers them with tremendous blows, blasting hellish flame through their cores. They break over him like a wave over a stone. Their molten essence rains down from above, scorching his uniform but not blemishing his skin.

Amid the chaos the Hulk has ripped Surtr's arm free of his shoulder. It crashes to the ground, sword in hand, but the furious Surtr wrests the blazing blade from his own dead grasp and smites the Hulk – no longer hanging on his back and so within weapon's reach as if swatting a fly. The irradiated monster roars in agony, loses his grip, and plummets to the ground to be kicked away by the Jötunn.

Thor is harrying the giant with blows from Mjölnir, diving in and out of reach; Hawkeye's arrows blow holes in Surtr's undefended side; Iron Man and War Machine are fighting back the tide of Jötnar with the rat-a-tat of their guns.

The Humans have evacuated. Not planning on meeting the burned Hulk, now swamped in Jötnar's, fate, Steve continues to slay one Jötunn after another, watching Surtr for a false move.

When Thor knocks the giant off balance, Steve leaps, wresting a handhold from the giant's uneven chest – breaking off a flake of cooled lava with his thumb. Using his shield as a piton he scales Surtr's body, then violently and unerringly smashes the shield once, twice and a third time into the Jötunn's jaw.

The jaw flies away to land on the ground beyond. Molten lava pours from the wound down Surtr's chest, bathing Steve in its flow. Steve is twice as hot, liquefying it further. It runs off his body like water.

The Hulk has at last returned, barreling into Surtr's leg. The damaged giant topples backward, crushing his own Jötnar soldiers beneath him in a cataclysm of stone.

Surtr battles no longer than this. Between Steve and the Hulk's blows and those of Thor, who has landed upon him, the mighty Jötunn king is dismantled, his liquid-hot essence flowing across the soil. 

Steve 's mind is a haze of rage. The Jötnar are beating a hasty retreat, but it is minutes before Steve is finished devastating the corpse. He leaps from stone into the flow, splitting the Devourer's core as he split others'. Wading through knee-deep magma, he retreats toward the defended hill, knowing his goal only vaguely, his thoughts a roiling sea of unspent black violence.

Thor lands near him, Surtr's flaming sword in one hand, the artifact mastered and reduced in size, he holds Mjölnir in the other.

"Captain," Hawkeye says, joining them after a jog up the road. He stops that sentence and starts again: "Steve. What happened to you?"

"I made a deal with Satan," Steve says, words falling off his lips as if they're the most natural thing in the world.

"What 'Satan'? What manner of sorcery is this? Did Loki have a hand in it?" 

Steve looks Thor in the eyes, shaking his head even while verifying Thor's suspicions.

"Loki was only the messenger."

"He tricked you," Thor says, anger coming over his expression.

"No. I had plenty of time to think it over," Steve insists. His attention snaps into focus. "–give me that sword. I cracked him open. That's mine, now."

Thor hesitates, but brow drawn in a scowl he passes the blade over. Steve tests its heft in his hand and is satisfied.

Steve is naked, and the paint that once decorated his shield has burned off.

**(Now: The Hellicarrier)**

Thor had imagined that, when Surtr fell, he would feel elation. Vindication. A fresh sense of liberty.

Those emotions abide within him, although muted. In his mind's eye he sees Baldur's smiling face, races the fields of Asgard beside him in their youthful vigor and shares mead with him beside the fire.

His long awaited celebration is occluded by his fear for Steve and fury at Loki.

He knows a little of Satan from the latter years of Asgard's involvement with the lands the humans now call Scandinavia. A myth from the south. A great evil spoken of by the men of a new and spreading faith. It sounds, from Steve's lips, that this Satan was based on a being that lives, as were the myths that grew up around Thor, his family and his people.

Director Fury has recalled the Avengers, saying "I'm going to want a full account of everything that just happened out there, so get your story straight."

Despite his command they have shared no discussion among them before they file into the debriefing room where Fury and Maria Hill await them. Steve, dressed in SHIELD uniform, was recalcitrant – although no longer on fire – during the flight to the Helicarrier, and the rest too disquieted to discuss their roles in the battle. Steve has been segregated from the rest by a security detail. He waits in the hallway outside, sword and shield requisitioned.

Along with the director and his second stand four black boxes unmarked except for the numbers painted in white upon each. Thor does not ask what they are or what they are for, taking a seat with his comrades.

Hill, expert interrogator, extracts the series of events that led to Surtr's death from them while she paces the front of the room, expression professionally blank. Fury stands to the side, his hands on his hips.

"I saw Captain America on Surtr from a distance," Natasha says. "At first I didn't know what he was until I took a gun from the solider beside me, looked down the scope and saw his shield."

The rest can give better account, but no explanations save that which Steve gave them: that he dealt with Satan.

Fury touches his earpiece and orders Steve brought in. He's allowed to sit among them. The Avengers shuffle their chairs to make room for him to bring one in in the middle.

"I'm finding this story hard to believe. People are telling me you, a good Protestant boy, struck up a contract with 'Satan'," Fury says, unbudging on his side of the room. Hill stands beside him, her arms crossed and gaze picking Steve apart.

"Not exactly," Steve says. "He called himself Mephistopheles, like from Faust."

"And what was he? An extraterrestrial?" 

Steve's voice is as earnest as ever but his eyes as hard as Thor has ever seen them.

"I don't know, sir. Loki called him a spirit. He said he was almost as old as time, and that I'd be right to call him a devil. Loki said he collects souls. To get power from him I signed mine away. The contract I signed said in exchange for power on Earth my soul would go to Hell when I died and I would serve Mephisto there. I haven't ruled out the possibility that one or both of them lied to me."

Queasiness unsettles Thor's stomach. He maintains stoicism.

All eyes in the room are on Steve.

"What motivated you to sign the contract? Exactly what were you thinking?" Hill asks.

"I wasn't willing to play dice with the fate of the humanity," Steve says. His intonation and the use of past tense tell Thor Steve may no longer be the trustworthy comrade Thor believed him to be until today. "Loki said Mephisto has a stake in the Earth because he can't tempt an extinct race to sign their souls his way. Mephisto said my soul was the only one in the balance if I took him up on his offer of supernatural power. You saw the results yourself, sir. I couldn't have defeated Surtr on just the serum. His sword even burned the Hulk."

Thor goes hot with the desire to fly to South America and deal with Loki himself, face to face, even take Mjölnir to his brother's wicked mouth. His emotions avow he has been betrayed – fooled into turning a blind eye to Loki's dealings while Loki plied him with her desire for solace.

Hill shifts her weight to her other leg and flexes her fingers against her upper arms.

"Could you call up the flames you used in China right now if we asked you to?"

"Yes, sir. Now that the contract has kicked in I can feel it right under my skin. I'm ready to take Thanos on, sir."

"Your first stop is gonna be psychiatric, and I don't expect you to have a problem with that because right now we don't know where Thanos is," Fury says. "You're dismissed, Captain. The gentlemen in the hall will walk you over."

Steve grinds his teeth and his gaze sharpens, but he answers: "Yes, sir."

When Steve has departed a woman's voice speaks from the box marked #03.

"I would like to know the Avengers' opinions of Steve Rogers' testimony."

Fury nods, looking to his team.

"You heard her."

"Fury has my report on file, but before we deployed for the second time in Argentina, when Steve went off the cameras, we had a conversation," Natasha says. "It didn't trigger any warning bells. He expressed concern that he had dehumanized Hydra's agents in his mind in order to kill them and he said he was afraid he was growing nihilistic. In context, it sounded straightforward that he'd move toward a position of moral relativism when he began to see humanity in his enemies. The timeframe tells me Loki had already talked with him, because Loki was leaving for Jötunheimr, but I'm unable to assess when he made contact with 'Mephisto'."

"I know a few things about unchecked aggression," Bruce says, brown drawn and a frown on his lips. My instincts out there told me he was as much of a threat as Surtr, and they haven't stopped letting me know it even though my brain's changed configurations, since."

"I feared as much," a man's voice says from box #4. "Allowing Captain America free run of a battlefield could endanger Human lives and your Avengers, Director Fury."

"I know Steve," Rhodes says. "We've grown close. That person that just left is not the man I'm friends with. But there's one thing left I recognize: He's focused on the job. Seeing that we don't know what he's capable of, I can't estimate how fast that could change."

Thor cocks his head, thinking upon the situation – thinking of berserks.

"I have no more faith in Steve than anyone else here, but the edge he offers us against Thanos could be invaluable. His potency outmatches that of any Áss. To contain him might be to unleash a wrath upon us better utilized should we come to blows with the Titan."

"What about Loki, King of Jötunheimr?" asks box #1. "It appears he can no longer be trusted."

Resignation weighs heavily upon Thor's chest. He winces as the possibility his brother – his beloved – might again become an enemy.

"I know not Loki's mind, though I wish to learn it. In his training with Lady Freyja, ruler of the Vanir, he has learned to walk among the spirits of the astral realms. I know none of the ways behind such dealings. Would that I did, that I knew if Loki has endangered himself."

"You are his lover," says box #3. "We cannot take your testimony at face value."

"On my honor," Thor says hotly, appalled to have it questioned.

The other Avengers give their impressions to Fury, Hill, and the humans who speak through the boxes, but Thor's thoughts are no longer with the band assembled in the debriefing room. Instead they are on eyes soaked red and a translucent body shot with sharp lines of white ice clad in the too-familiar armor of Asgard's enemies. The memory of his brother's fleshless, distorted form fills him with revulsion. Thor grapples with his disgust until he can see he wishes to blame it all upon Loki's transformation. The truth remains Loki acted before he was changed.

He wishes for nothing but to have his brother, the brother who is _real_ to him, back in his arms.

How much of that man has he only imagined? He cannot assure himself Loki has committed no crimes before this since he was recovered from Thanos and reclaimed for Asgard.

No matter that he picks over his memories, seeking any fatal, damning detail, for his love-blinded eyes saw no signs of wrongdoing – even if wrongdoing may have gone on before them.

****

(Then: Asgard )

"I think we should do something about Hogun of Skornheim."

Volstagg looks up at Fandral, standing beside him, from the fresh-baked loaf of bread and the cheese on the plate in his lap.

"You can't really 'do something' about a person without their permission or an invitation, Fandral," he says, biting off a hunk of bread.

Fandral is leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest, watching the stoic warrior who stands alone among the Æsir gathered to drink and listen to the tales of the skalds. Volstagg knows that face. It's the face that says Fandral has acquired a new fixation. Fandral can attach it to anything: beautiful women, men, fine horses, a particularly vexing enemy or a daunting physical task.

"It's been thirty years since Mogul's army massacred the Æsir on the far island of Skornheim. I don't think he's said two words since Odin bid him make Glaðsheimr his home."

"Why are you putting it to me, my friend? You've already decided to go and talk to him. Gudrun gives me earfuls enough of everything she's already decided each night after the children are put to bed and my husbandly duties are fulfilled."

Fandral's thoughts have taken a side trip on their path to his ultimate intentions. He looks upon Volstagg in wonder.

"Each night? Good man, you are ever an inspiration. I pray should I ever marry that the Norns have in store for me a wife as energetic as yours."

Volstagg's booming laugh carries above the music and conversation. He shakes he head at his friend as he breaks off a piece of cheese.

"Did you think we conjured our five children? I tell you, I did such a good job raising you and Thor and little Loki, Gudrun got it in her head we should bring some up like you," he says, pushing the cheese in his mouth. He squints across the hall at Hogun who has not perceptibly moved. "But, I'd thought you had your mind set on a man for one purpose or another."

Fandral follows his gaze back to the stoic warrior still proudly wearing the garb of his far off homeland.

"He looks not of Loki's persuasion, lest they advertise themselves much differently in Skornheim. That one's a man through and through," Fandral says. "Come, Volstagg, bring along your food and let us learn the make of him more thoroughly."

Volstagg rises from the bench and follows his young friend, granted it gives him the opportunity to reach between celebrants and load fresh victuals before him. He is not convinced Fandral, for all his good intentions, will have any luck. Hogun might even be a mute. That would be a fine setup to watch Fandral flounder at in confusion. 

Fandral puts on his winning smile and does not back down for all that Hogun, attention caught, looks completely disinterested in him.

"Hail, friend Hogun. It is good to see you among us enjoying the food, company and famous skalds hosted in Glaðsheimr's golden halls."

They undoubtedly made them with manlier features in Skornheim, Volstagg thinks, comparing Fandral and the friend he seeks to win as his teeth tear meat from a leg of turkey. Hogun is all jaw and neck and excellent brow. Fandral is no doubt of an age with him but would look about eight hundred if he didn't keep up his facial hair.

Hogun waits. He is not haughty; there's no disdain; he doesn't seem impatient. If he books no nonsense and that's the end of it then Fandral, composed chiefly of nonsense, does not have much chance with him.

Fandral maintains his dashing poise.

Hogun, seeing this is all of it, nods politely to the swordsman and turns his attention back to the skald.

Volstagg, having two thousand years on them both, reminisces upon what he knows of Skornheim from his visits there. Its Æsir were particularly well known for their economical interactions. In Hogun, that has been exaggerated to an extreme. Volstagg has seen enough slaughter to estimate what effect everyone he's ever known dying at once might have on a man.

"I suspect my sword brother's sentiment would be better appreciated if he rephrased it: 'Would you like to go out to the sparring grounds and all knock each other about?'"

Volstagg congratulates himself on being an excellent judge of character. Hogun is immediately more invested, interest lightening his expression.

"You are the princes' close companions. I would be honored to test my steel against yours."

Although not the architect of their success, Fandral's smile becomes less theatrical – warmer and friendlier.

"Excellent! Volstagg is right. My failing is the twenty minutes of overture before I get to the things that really matter."

"Just a minute, hold yourselves there," Volstagg commands.

When he's fully stocked his platter, they quietly make their way from the hall to go engage in violence.

Volstagg isn't surprised when Hogun silently joins them at breakfast the next morning. He says nothing, but their weapons forged an accord between the three of them that Volstagg sees lasting indefinitely.


	9. Chapter 9

**(Now: Asgard)**

The Realm Eternal is a plane of abundance. The fresh scent of grass, wildflowers and apple blossoms hangs in the air. The trees which rise from its soil are older than many of the plane's Æsir. Thanos has heard legends that fantastic beasts stalk its untamed fields and forever-wild forests, both at the edges of the capital and upon its other sprawling pre-planetoid lands, but where Thanos walks his footsteps and the snapping of fallen branches and leaves beneath are the only sounds.

 _Even the wind fears Thanos Rex,_ the ancient Titan thinks with a satisfied smile.

He comes upon a road and lays his course to Glaðsheimr by it. He soon spies his foes in the distance, daylight flashing against their helmets – an army of thousands. With his perfect sight, Thanos sees Odin One-Eye standing at the head of the legion, the famed spear Gungnir held erect, wings flanking the twisted horns of his helmet and his cloak a deep crimson.

The sight of Thanos is not so perfect he can count the wrinkles upon Odin's aged face from so far away, but he sees a body at the end of its material tenure. The lack of ambition among the primordial races astonishes. Thanos, of Midgard writ large, estimates himself twice Odin's age or more ancient yet. The Æsir content themselves moving on to their incorporeal realms.

Odin's soldiers are arrayed behind their king, a wall of spear wielding Æsir. Thanos chortles at the thought of those spears jabbing at his regalia like a stirred up hive of any given swarming creature of Midgard. He weighs whether he will be amazed or annoyed if they rip it.

Thor and Loki Odinson are absent, as Mephisto vowed they would be. Freyja Shape-wise, Vanr goddess who translocates readily, stands at Odin's right hand, dressed in armor, her golden hair swept up through her helmet and atop it piled. Heimdall the All Seeing stands in line behind his king in gold armor and brown leather with his claymore of dwarven uru . 

In Thanos's mind's eye these meek claimants for the title of 'gods' are already lain low, bowls spilled across the grass, blood seeping into the soil. How many similar little 'gods' has he dispatched in thirty thousand years? The Æsir possess immortality – and if Thanos correctly understands their composition, which he does, might even be fully revived to the flesh with sufficient expenditure dark energy – but their bodies are pitiful.

Thanos stops at a distance from the army, standing tall, although not so tall as he is massive. A smile is affixed to hthis pis lips, his teeth like grindstones in his mouth.

He imagines his mistress in Asgardian guise. Souls reaped by the hand of Thanos are given unto Death, no matter their nature. Laughing in jubilation, enthusiasm for getting his hands into the fray and not merely commanding armies swelling inside him, Thanos charges the defenders of Asgard's golden palace. The arrows that pelt his body fall harmlessly onto the road.

Odin and Freya stand still as statues but their eyes betray to the master tactician their hope lies in softening him up with their magics. These are the moments in time the last Titan hungrily anticipates above all others. Strategy games played with planets, armies and empires are but hobbies to while the time. Inventing drones, warships and new lifeforms are exercises to keep his agile mind alert to minutiae.

These pleasures, not by happenstance, play host to a perfect deception. The less times the Titan himself takes the field, slimmer the chance that the reality of his invulnerability will reach the ears of far-off, future opponents.

As Thanos rushes the waiting army, ground shaking with his footfalls, the lady Freyja raises her hand. Her power touches Thanos' mind. Over a decamillennium ago, through genetic manipulation and self-surgery, he made the alterations to protect that matter against the influence of the particles called psions.

An eldritch blast is unleashed from the spear point of Gungnir. It has no effect on the Titan's charge except for its blinding brightness. 

The blast was but a distraction from Odin's spellcasting. Tendrils of dark energy made snares lash themselves around the bullish Titan's limbs, hauling him backwards with tremendous force. A burst of raw cosmic energy disperses them, but now Thanos has failed to send the Æsir's king flying back through the ranks of his troops with the momentum-backed punch he hoped to score against him.

A shifted Freyja who took wing during the blast falls upon him from behind, plummeting from above, eagle in form. Her talons grasp the back of his metal collar; her powerful wings batter his head and her shrieks deafen. The shrill cries prove a better vehicle for psychic dissonance. The Titan knows the lady's aim: to prevent him from projecting psychic influence on any others.

The Æsir take advantage of Freyja's distracting assault, surrounding Thanos, thrusting spears into his thighs, his abdomen and buttocks. Buoyant with glory of his own magnificence, he snatches his attackers by any limb one after the other, carelessly pitching them into the air. Those he can't catch he punches, Asgardian faces smashed flat, distorted helmets sunk into skulls shattered.

Freya continues her assault: pecking, shrieking, and buffeting, magic in her attacks. Thanos apprehends that Odin and Heimdall want nothing more than for him to grasp for, even crush the transformed sorceress, leaving himself open to attack. In his aggravation – fighting for a clear mind – disruptor beams erupt from his eyes, disintegrating the Áss before him. 

The smell of blood and the dead's emptied bowels perfumes the air. The bodies of defeated Æsir, misshapen and contused by Thanos' blows, are discharging their contents by familiar orifices and new. Thanos wades forward, bodies squelching under his footsteps, unafraid of the Æsir soldiers. He yanks a spear from the hand of one and stabs it back through the woman's armored chest, laughing at her surprised expression as she collapses. 

Thanos glimpses his beloved, Áss in form among the dead Æsir, standing in blood but her robes untouched. Layers of muscle and strips of skin stretch unevenly across her skull, the groundwork for a future face. Her throat remains open, fledgling esophagus and trachea exposed. She is looking down at the bodies of those now her newest subjects and that the exposed muscles betray the faintest smile.

The sight of such beauty invigorates Thanos to new heights. He pays her heed no more. He throws himself onto his back, doing damage to the road beneath him, immediately rolling away and back to his feet with an agility disproportionate to his bulk, leaving Freyja dazed, half-crushed and hobbling.

The Æsir form ranks around her.

It is the opening Odin and Heimdall awaited.

Thanos whips around to slap away an assault from Heimdall's uru blade. The potent Vanr plants a furious kick to Thanos' stomach with a booted foot, but his attack has no effect. Thanos stands stalwart, the force dispersed across a thin sheen of energy.

The first glow of Heimdall's demise by disintegration appears in Thanos' eyes – at the same moment a blaze of eldritch energy pours upon him, power released from Gungnir. This assault the withstands, too dense and too full of raw energy to be obliterated but blind again. He squints against the golden light. A shield of his own energy appears around him. Odin's assault, flying off it into golden sparks in all directions, is already affecting its deterioration.

Thanos hears the road crack beneath him. Thick cords with the scent of vegetation coil around the Titan's body at the speed of thought – Freyja's magic. Thanos laughs, bursting those bonds with the strength of his muscles alone, grabbing them in his hands and ripping them up from the soil.

If he could smell fear over the aromas accompanying violence in death he would smell it now off the Æsir's lesser warriors. They hesitate well beyond his shield, weapons raised toward him but knowing if Odin and Freyja's powers fail their own puny strength can't contest him.

The vines purchase just enough time. The shield collapses under Gungnir's assault; given time to build, the force of that ray of light increased exponentially. Connecting with the Titan's chest, it blows him off the road, away and back and into the side of an immense building. Its wall collapses on top of him. He punches and kicks the rubble off him, soon seeing daylight – and Odin eclipsing it. The wizened Áss plunges toward him from high above, Gungnir's haft grasped in both hands, spear-point at the lead of the king's attack.

Thanos twists his upper body, throwing a force-shielded punch to counter the impact of Odin's famous weapon. Neither combatant suffers harm, but Odin is knocked away into the air to land at a distance on his feet.

A flock of birds descends upon the Titan as he raises himself from the rubble, not living birds but avatars of Freyja. Odin fires Gungnir again. Thanos matches bolt for bolt, power shooting from his eyes, the two forces colliding explosively. The shockwave of colliding powers burns away grass, leaves a furrow in the soil and cracks the walls of distant buildings.

A circle marked with runes appears beneath Thanos' feet. The Titan knows it has been drawn elsewhere, already, to be summoned so suddenly, and that his resistance will dissolve the reagents employed in that distant place. He vents all his energy downward as darkness rises around him. The circle holds, at first, but next glowing runes, detaching from the ground, float free into the air around the Titan's legs and snap into pieces. 

The circle breaks. Wherever Odin meant to banish him, Thanos has refused to go. The birds, too, are destroyed, as Thanos' gathered energies churn around him, shooting into the sky like a tornado of fire: currents of oranges, reds and yellows without the discharge of heat, foul bubbles of black cosmic emptiness twisted among them.

"You are old, Skyfather. Decrepit. Your son, who will so soon pay for his failures, revealed to me your last sleep came on traumatically and ended far too early. Death is upon you; I, Thanos Rex, her harbinger."

There is defiance alone in Odin's storm-blue eye. Anger has plowed furrows in his wrinkled features.

Thanos bull rushes Odin a second time, punching away the blasts of Gungnir deployed against him. He is prepared for the cacophony of magic that engulfs him, tearing against his momentum, dissolving his armor but not his skin. The vines that grasp at his feet do not trip or slow him, no substitute for Odin's earlier tentacles, torn from the Earth as like an auroch he charges.

Odin slips to the side. Thanos sees the haziest outlines of a hundred identical images of the Allfather firing Gungnir. His fortified mind denies them. Asimple correction in course allows him, to grasp Gungnir below its head where two downturned blades meet to prevent such a gesture, or to hook an enemy weapon and disarm the foe. They are incapable of cutting the Titan's glove, let alone his impenetrable flesh.

He rips the spear forward, out of Odin's failing grasp. Twirling it in the air he plunges it through the breastplate of the Áss beneath him. Blood gushes from the three-pronged penetration, welling like springwater from the depths of the Allfather's body. In the next moment Thanos is engulfed in darkness, his body frozen in time with Odin, his body a trap, held in place – spear buried too deep for escape.

While he rallies his energies to break free of this curse, the cutting edge of unseen Heimdall's claymore strikes a smarting line across his back.

It is a futile blow, bruising not the Titan's skin. There, behind Thanos, is the Vanr rivaled in power only by Freyja.

How fragile and pathetically mortal, the Titan thinks. 

Roaring like a beast, Thanos disperses Odin's bindings with the vast cosmic energies inside him. He shoves Gungnir ground-ward, feels the spearhead penetrate organs, bones, back and plate until it strikes soil, leaving the crushed, venerable Odin to suffer his last, bleeding out of wounds too brutal for mending.

Thanos has won freedom of movement, but Odin's darkness prevails.

The Titan summons his undiminished power, throwing his hands in front of him, palms exposed and fingers outstretched, sending his energies rushing out to obliterate whatever may stand before him him. Such a torrent is unsparing of mortal flesh. He sweeps his hands in two arcs, one to either side.

Heimdall's blade cleaves him once more, smashing down upon his forearm. Thanos' hand clenches reflexively, ending his assault, but from his other hand power blasts still.

He shrouds himself thickly in his energies, cocooned from all intrusive forces. In that privacy, discharging power against the curse until he unworks Odin's spell and restores his sight, he is rewarded seeing around him so many dead Æsir – victims of his blast who his beloved wanders among. She pauses to watch hearts stop, eyes glaze over, muscles go loose and powerful souls catch in her snares.

Odin dead, no other Æsir nor the few Vanir among them prove a similar challenge. With Gungnir in hand, Thamps guts an ursine Freyja. Heimdall's blows he knocks away with his arms, head-butting the guard's hard helmet – its alloy not nearly as hard as Thanos' head. Heimdall he decapitates with a tremendous swing of the blade-edged spearhead.

The Titan cracks his shoulders, looking ecstatically to his indescribably fair beloved. Freyja's beauty has been taken into her, and – as she is so rarely in her persistent melancholy – pleased. Thanos goes to Freyja's dead body, Vanir again, and takes from her corpse the blood-smeared necklace Brísingamen, wishing that soon it will adorn the pale neck of Death.

"I go below, mistress," he says to Death. His pulse races with passions spurred by that sad but lovely smile that she casts him.

Thanos leaves the devastated bodies of his Æsir foes lying strewn across the blasted remains of their manicured gardens, their blood making a swamp of the soil. Not in vengeance but as act of intimidation, to leave himself unbothered by vengeful wives and children, he lobs blasts that shatter walls and topple towers at Æsir buildings close and far. 

Once inside Glaðsheimr, he does not know the lay of this palace. Where he finds gleaming staircases he descends.

Deep beneath the palace a colossal android, shining silver, confronts him. Thanos suspects it had little trouble finding him in contrast to his own meandering.

Taller than Thanos – its artificial head nearly touching the high ceiling – the colossus strides toward the Titan. Recognizing his own tactic, Thanos subtly shifts his position to prepare to meet a charge. At the same time the android bursts into motion its face-plate falls away, a beam of searing energy streaking ahead of the charge.

Thanos senses something is wrong even as he sidesteps the formidable assault. The android is still charging down the center of the hallway. The rings which compose it whirl into action, the android's upper torso twisting sideways with alarming speed, hands thrown forward to grab hold of Thanos, employing its equal weight and its momentum to tackle the Titan onto the floor. Knocked from Thanos' grasp, Gungnir clatters away.

Another blast of light and heat from the android, face to face. It blinds Thanos with its incredible intensity. The Titan, who can stand exposed in space, feels its heat. Simultaneously, a blade smashes down onto his cheek; the power the android is venting into his face weakens the cohesion of his flesh. The wound stings.

Thanos silently commends his unidentified assailants for their initiative at blasting and cleaving him apart. This is not the Æsir way of war making. He had no means to anticipate it.

He wraps his hands around the android's neck and squeezes, the metal deforming beneath his grasp. The axe beats on him again and again; the energy continues to pour unstaunched.

The Titan opts against choking the construct and instead punches the side of thing's head repeatedly until it is flatted and goes cold. He shoves his assailant off of him, sending the Áss flying off to land on the hard floor.

"Who do I have the pleasure of killing?" Thanos inquires in his gravelly voice, picking himself up from the novel assault.

"Volstagg, Lion of Asgard," the voluminous man proclaims proudly, jutting out his great stomach. "In my prime, a feared warrior of Asgard!"

"No longer in your prime."

Volstagg nods along.

"A good woman and eight wee children turns a man's belly soft, but I have never shirked my duty to inspire the next generation of warriors."

Thanos admires the man's vigor, but knows, too, that this Volstagg means only to stall him. The time for conversation is at an end.

"My condolences they will grow up orphans in a kingless land – if they survive the oncoming cataclysm," Thanos says.

Thanos kills.

A true warrior, Thanos muses when he has hefted Gungnir and left Volstagg with such wounds from punctured organs that blood pours over the mountain of his stomach. To face a foe unflinching when one's liege is dead indeed speaks of leonine bravery and past magnificence. Death no doubt will prize him.

Thanos makes his way onward down the hallway. Central to its length stand two heavy door incised with elaborate vinescroll. These he heaves open. A rush of cold air meets him. The vault he looks out upon hangs above so vasty a pit that even the Titan, with all his engineering prowess, must give the Asgardians their due.

A woman stands at the bottom of the torch lit staircase leading into the cavernous chamber's depths. Her eyes hold no emotion. Thanos knows from calmness upon her that she is a seer, and from her crystal-studded golden dress and noble bearing, hands folded over her lap, that she is Asgard's queen. 

"A rare Áss to stand without a weapon, even if your defiance would be in vain." 

"The poorest hostess alone would welcome you into her home with her weapon drawn."

"Then there is one here wise enough to recognize the futility of contending with my strength?"

The queen expels a quiet sigh. 

"I am moments from my death. My sight tells me you deny us Hel, but I will be with my husband," she says. "I am satisfied to remain beside him; I wish only to know what is worth all this."

Thanos is as joyous as the queen is resigned.

"Love guides my every action. My love and your longevity are antithetical."

She accepts his explanation without shock or further inquiry. She remains soft-spoken:

"The Tessearct is no longer here, Thanos. You have brought Asgard to ruin, but gained nothing."

Thanos stalks down the long staircase, plunging Gungnir through the statuesque and distant queen and throwing her gorged body off it with a shake of the weapon. She lands in a heap of ungainly limbs and rolls down three steps. Thanos looks down on her as he passes. She is contemplative and serene, even as she grows pale and uncontrollable spasms contort her body.

A tempest of rage clouds Thanos' sight. He doesn't stop to crush her head beneath his boot, but only because time could be vital.

Asgard's queen spoke the truth. The vault is empty.

Not of artifacts, although he disparagingly picks over these with his gaze, hoping to win an advantage. None of them are of particular utility. The Warlock's Eye could amplify his already-sufficiently-deadly gaze but obtaining it isn't worth the risk of triggering occult security measures. 

He quickly sees that while the Tesseract may have been transported, his quest for it need not begin anew. Where it must have until minutes ago been located wait primitive human computers and an array of equipment that after brief survey he susses the purpose of.

He pays close attention to the configuration's interface device. English and German he has fully assimilated from the Red Skull and luck has it English is displayed on the interface. Earth languages are native to some famous wanders scattered across the stars, the pirate Corsair and the Kree-ally Star Lord, but Thanos considered them galactic footnotes until the day the Tesseract awakened.

Spending a brief time with the computer, Thanos derives the Tesseract's exact point of touchdown. A single task remains. All the parts he needs are in front of him, already configured to heed the Tesseract. He pulls free components of the cube's former, jury-rigged housing, soldering them into his own bootstrapped sensor array with white-hot light from his fingertips.

Now, the Titan rushes. He rarely rushes.

Mephisto, when explaining why Bifrost was impenetrable for Thanos' purposes, told him there were two keys to the Observatory where Bifrost intersects Asgard: Odin's spear, Gungnir, and the sword of Heimdall. A key in hand, giant strides consuming the ground beneath him, the Titan sprints for the observatory.

**(The Hellicarrier)**

The door to Steve's detention cell blows off its hinges, smashing into the wall across the hallway. All guns are on Steve when he exits the room, eyes two pits of fire and flames flickering form his tongue as he speaks.

"I am Mephisto," the man who looks like Steve tells a SHEILD agent with all politeness. "Hand me one of those Bluetooth-like things on your heads. I need speak with Fury."

The guards balk, but the target of Steve's attention cautiously removes his communication device from his ear and tosses it to Steve who looks it over briefly and then applies it to his own ear in turn.

"Director Nick Fury," he says, depressing the little button marked 'call'.

"Rogers? Is that you?" the voice on the other end of the line asks, but his tone betrays he already knows the answer. So, this Human is astute enough to recognize all the changes in pronunciation.

Mephisto toys with the SHIELD logo stitched onto Steve's shoulder, frowning at how flimsy all human things are.

"You know me as Mephistopheles," he says. "Scrying from Hell, I watched Thanos destroy Asgard. He slaughtered its king and its worthiest warriors." He smiles at the thought of Fury's heart sinking, cold despair taking hold of him – at all the suffering his words must inflict. "Mm, but the small band protecting the Tesseract employed it to evacuate from Earth, sparing _me_ the need to intervene. To Midgard's misfortune, the Titan is hot in pursuit. The Bifrost is, to Thanos, an antiquated piece of technology he'll have no trouble co-opting; the spear of Odin that operates it is in his hands. The battleground will be poor, abused New York."

"I have a natural inclination to disbelieve you, but Stark's equipment's confirming something with the Tesseract's gamma signature just popped up in Manhattan," Fury says back.

"Chop chop, SHIELD. Don't kennel my guard dog again. I'll be much less friendly if you impede my designs."

Mephisto disappears from Steve's body. He is returned to his scrying room. Sulfurous incense billows from the censers surrounding him. He pulls at his chin, bare of a beard today, gazing on the now-blank black mirror through which he spies upon the physical worlds. He thinks of his daughter, Mephista, easy enough to control but much too weak for the task of deterring Thanos. He laments that his son, Blackheart, is in the clutches of that rebellious phase in which a young demon vastly overestimates his own power. Mephisto is too sure Blackheart would try to strike up an accord with Thanos to control the greater portion of Hell, not anticipating that with a Cosmic Cube under his power Thanos can think him from existence.

There is setting Zarathos, a rival Hell Lord enslaved to his might, to the task, but Mephisto has had no time since he first became aware of the Tesseract to seek out and manufacture a Ghost Rider to play host to that demon. Instead he invested in Steve Rogers, a soul too powerful to cede over to that ancient mortal enemy hungry for vindication. And Loki…

He's a clever little bastard. Mephisto would rather have a clever little bastard as his eyes and ears carrying out his goals in the world than employ brute force.

A disconcerting awareness hovers over the devil that no matter how mighty his Hell there exists only the slimmest of all chances of that Thanos can be slain. The best hope against such an embodiment of universal material and radiant powers is that it might be deterred.

**(Central Park, New York)**

Officer Carlos Vargas, gauze mask covering his mouth and nose, hitched behind his ears, sits astride his bay quarter horse and partner, Buck. Buck's steel shoes clap against the pavement as they amble along their patrol route, circling Central Park. The overcast sky promises afternoon showers, but the air at street level is dry and unnaturally scentless. The absence of sidewalk vendors cooking franks, exhaust from congested traffic, restaurant smells and the stink of passing sanitation vehicles is loud to Vargas' nose.

New York's usually-bustling streets are emptied and quiet. Cars and motorcycles and bicycle traffic passes man and horse by at stunted intervals, but the city's near-ubiquitous yellow cabs are nowhere to be seen. Pedestrians alone, in pairs, or in small groups walk the sidewalks in depleted numbers.

All the action Vargas has seen this morning was when he chased a group of teenagers passing around a fifth of vodka off the steps of the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church. 

"Clear off the street. Come on. You don't know who you'll run into out here. Go home. Find an X-box. I know somebody's parents aren't gonna care – and get your masks on," he chastised them, sending them back in the direction of their apartments. He left them to their liquor. The station is in no position to receive anybody except violent offenders. He's out here to enforce the closure of public spaces, not write up kids for drinking. 

Ninety-percent of the city is shacked up in voluntary, in-home quarantine. A defiant ten-percent are still peopling the streets. Some of those, terrified and symptomatic, are in transit to hospitals and make-shift medical stations. Vargas gives them directions without coming in close contact. He's not kidding himself, though. He has no doubt that after this long the virus is in his blood. Buck's job has changed from keeping his rider above the pedestrians to keeping the pedestrians a safe distance from his rider.

Vargas is enforcing an atypical brand of law and order. Spreading out Manhattan's population is futile – it'd be laughable – when there's forty-seven thousand people per square mile. It's difficult to estimate how many of those people evacuated. Everybody with friends and relatives somewhere outside the borough got out over a week ago. 

New York's homeless are dispersed across the city, in alleys and in the byways of the Park. He's not sending them to shelters because the CDC has labeled those death traps in more officious words. If he finds a tramp infected and languishing –or worse, dead – in the park he calls it in for one of the biohazard crews or the V's to descend and spirit that man or woman away.

The V's are the lucky ones. The victorious. They've seen the pox and come out on the other side. The ones that make up Manhattan's volunteer relief force tie white armbands around their biceps. They patrol in gangs, breaking up looting and fighting. They're stronger than Vargas would believe if he hadn't seen one turn a car on its side to protect the cops on the scene from gunfire or another take a bullet to the shoulder, dig it out, and start healing up.

The people Vargas sees walking up Center Drive are a different species of gang entirely. There's a slight woman walking with something bundled up in green fabric in her arms. Maybe a baby. He pins her for human, like the woman walking beside her. Vargas is partly basing that on their Earth-typical clothes, but just as much of his assessment comes from how haggard they look compared to their armed and armored escort. The escort has only done them so much good. The second woman has one arm tucked against her chest. Her hand is painful to look at.

The other three are tall, sharp-eyed and healthy. Vargas pins them as Asgardians from their heavy, half-medieval costumes because his son has a poster of Thor on his wall. The look is hard to mistake. It doesn't take much mental addition to see the green cloth balled up in the human woman's arms came off the back of the Asgardian in green, his shoulder plates – Vargas thinks they call those pauldrons – ragged where the fabric was torn off.

He nudges Buck into a trot up Center, stopping short of the little band, wanting to keep his distance from the pox-free human women. He evaluates the odds of them being here, blocks from Avengers Tower, to relieve a planet in crisis and thinks those odds are pretty good.

"What can I do to help?"

The taller human with eyes like a 1950's actress smiles at the offer.

"Agent Darcy Lewis, SHIELD. Can you get your dispatcher on the line?"

Vargas nods, picking up his portable radio, establishing contact with dispatch.

"I have a SHIELD agent with me," he says. "She needs a message passed on." He takes his finger off the button, apologizing: "I'd lend you my equipment but I can't promise you it's infection free."

Agent Lewis and her human companion look different degrees of worried and pained, but Lewis gives straightforward instructions: dial up SHIELD, punch in her code.

"New York is under threat of attack from the hostile known as Thanos. I, Jane Foster, and our Asgardian security detail are taking the Tesseract to Avengers Tower and are requesting pick-up ASAP."

Head swimming with fear, with thoughts of his kids and his wife and memories of being on the streets during the Chitauri invasion, Vargas communicates her message verbatim to dispatch.

"—SHIELD wants you to know they've already deployed the Avengers to rendezvous, and that, uh, Thanos is coming after you," he says, not relieved to relay it. Maybe America's superheroes prevented a global catastrophe, but they didn't spare Manhattan a catastrophic death toll. He can only think _Why New York? Why again?_

"That's our cue to get going," the second woman says with a strained smile of gratitude.

"Alright," Vargas says. "Stay safe. —good luck."

He's not sure what the appropriate sentiments are for this situation. Buck has picked up on his nervousness, head held high, ears scanning the air like the sweep of sonar. 

"You too. Keep people off the streets," Agent Lewis says.

She looks sad, and that scares him more.

The Asgardians bow as the five set off toward Park Avenue and Avengers tower.

"What are my orders?" Vargas asks.

Dispatch takes a minute to answer.

"The chief says there's nothing we can do except broadcast for people to stay put in their homes no matter what they hear outside. Evacuating Manhattan would saturate the population with smallpox."

"Shit," Vargas says. "Right."

He reins Buck around one-handed, heading back onto the streets to scout for civilians and tell them to clear out. Pulling his cell phone out of concealment, he thumbs through his contact list for _Casa_.

He hasn't seen his wife in eight days. He's been sleeping at the precinct, hoping to spare his family from the disease a little longer by not bringing it home on his skin or his clothes or first, yet-undetected sores forming in his throat.

There aren't enough words to tell her how he loves her. He tells her to stay inside, to stay safe, to stay away from the exterior walls in case of explosions – to set up barriers, tables and mattresses, to catch debris, to go ahead and fill up the bathtub with water.

Their conversation is interrupted each time he lowers his phone to tell pedestrians to put as much distance between themselves and Avengers Tower as possible.

Then, he goes completely silent, watching in awe as the clouds are pulled – slowly at first, then with gathering speed – over Central Park, like water being sucked down a drain. A column of shadow, shot through with bright flashes of color, lit ominously when lightning races over it – sending thunder booming through the streets – descends toward the treeline of the park.

A flash of light. The phenomena vanishes.

Vargas knows it's the Bifrost opening because he's son has shown him on YouTube; he has to wonder why he didn't see it open when the Asgardians came through.

Vargas tell his wife he loves her one more time; he tells her to tell their children how much he loves them. He hangs up the phone and conceals it again. Buck dances underneath him, throwing his head up, jerking twice at the reins, a rare show of nerves for a police horse trained to keep his calm under the most startling and loudest of conditions.

Then Vargas hears what Buck hears, footsteps, but too loud for footsteps, shoes smacking pavement as loud as pounding on a drum.

Scared, he still urges Buck toward it.

If there's going to be military reinforcements, they'll be sparse, today. The bulk of the U.S. Army is fighting the war in the west.

Earth's latest enemy rushes past him. Vargas, dumbfounded, thinks he looks damn short to cause so much fear – definitely smaller than the Hulk. He's dressed in some battered, space age looking armor that hugs to his chunky body and is ugly as sin. 

Vargas draws his service pistol and takes aim, emptying the clip into the alien's back.

He sweats off his fear as the thing continues its charge into the distance. He hit it. He definitely hit it.

He doesn't think it noticed.

He kicks Buck into a canter, heading up a parallel street to hunt down civilians and send them running, simultaneously calling in the situation over the radio. 

He may be frightened, but unlike when he did his part to fight off the Chitauri it looks like the NYPD can pass under the radar.

**(Now: The Quinjet)**

Clint wouldn't say he feels safe in the air with the new Steve. That's a sign he's let himself get too comfortable around Bruce. Clint has read the Hulk's up-to-date dossier. Not five minutes go by without Bruce wanting to snap somebody's neck or rip their fingers out of their sockets or punch his way through a wall. Bruce just happens to be a known element; Steve's angry side is fresh-minted and untested. Steve doesn't know how to mask his anger, either. His eyes flicker from side to side and his posture's edgy like a dosed up meth addict.

Last Clint looked, everybody in the back of the quinjet was giving Steve his space – especially Bruce. Two metahumans' violent impulses intersecting at thirty-thousand feet would do a bad job on the jet.

"You could all be more grateful," Steve says, terse. "Here I am evening the odds after Asgard's entire army was slaughtered."

"Speak not of it," Thor says. The Asgardian's voice is low and monotone, masking Thor's own emotional volatility. Pain has been radiating off of Thor since Loki's friend Mephisto dropped the news on them. Clint can wrap his head around how Thor is hurting – what with the human race on a rapid decline – but only just. Thor lost family, and that's something Clint doesn't have.

"Considering there were tens of thousands of Asgardians and there's seven of us, I think we'd actually better talk about it. Did you ever touch base with Loki?" Steve sounds like Steve, the strategist, except for the cold of his voice in the face of Thor's tragedy.

"I sent word to Argentina. I could not contact him directly. He is without radio or cellular phone."

Clint can feel the tension between the men in the back in the jet's recycled air. The cabin temperature has ticked up one degree and Thor puts off static when he's emotional.

"Our job isn't threat suppression," Natasha reminds them, looking back over her shoulder from the co-pilot's chair. "You heard Fury: We get the Tesseract and we keep it in the air."

The finality in Nat's voice quells the storm of ego and emotion brewing among their human cargo. Clint's glad Stark hadn't picked a side and started up, already, but he thinks that's due to Rhodes' tempering influence.

"If we get the cube into my hands, or Tony's, then we can get out of there," Rhodes says. It needs saying when Thor, the Hulk, Iron Man and the captain are always spoiling for a fight.

Bruce raises his deceptively humble voice.

"I want you to leave me on the ground if you have to. Don't waste any time trying to convince me to back off Thanos and put yourselves at risk."

"Understood," Clint says. As the pilot, depending on circumstance it may come down to him to choose if the Avengers and the Tesseract's escort from Asgard get left behind for the sake of separating the Titan from the cube.

Tony pipes up from inside Iron Man.

"Jarvis says Thanos is on the ground, moving fast."

"Time?" Steve asks Clint. He sounds like he has his head around him.

"We're two minutes outside Manhattan," Clint says.

"Alright," Steve says. "War Machine, Thor, the minute we drop to cruising speed get out of here and throw some noise that guy's way. Slow him down. The important thing here is to get you on the scene fast. Iron Man, you're lighter and faster. Go for the pickup. Clint, do a flyover and me and the Hulk will get the literal drop on him. Then, sweep the area for Agent Lewis and Dr. Foster and find an extraction point. If you can't bring them on board or if the opportunity shows up – Iron Man, War Machine: make the grab."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Rhodes says.

The situation looks as bad as bad comes when the quinjet drops from Mach 2. Avengers Tower is standing, but the Helmsley Building in front of it is rubble: middle blown out, top half shattered and the debris strewn across East 46th in front of it. The green patina of the crushed roof is a bright spot amid the mountains of grey brick, some still stuck together in chunks of wall, others fallen free of their mortar.

Clint only looks long enough to make sense of the mess: it cuts off any direct route to Avengers Tower; it's a massive deterrent to continuing up Park. Now the three airborne Avengers are clear of the jet and Jarvis is feeding him the locations of the hostile, Thanos, and the Tesseract's escort team. Both have diverted West toward Madison Avenue.

Clint's feed from SHIELD is telling him Bryant Park out back of the public library two blocks over and ten southeast is the best place to put his bird down, but the situation doesn't look amenable to that right now.

"He has abandoned my father's spear. How arrogant is he to cast aside an artifact of such power?" Thor says. Clint hears hurt, hears offense in his voice.

"Keep your head out there," he says back. When Thor's angry his ears clog up and Clint doesn't know if the guy even heard him.

A flyover and the captain – Captain _What,_ exactly? – and the Hulk make their jump above the figure of the assault-harried Titan out back of Saint Patrick's Cathedral.

Clint's glad he's not the praying type, because along with the glitzy storefronts lined up around that venerable building with restoration scaffolding on its north side looks lined up to take collateral damage. 

Agent Lewis and her team are two blocks up. Clint relays the information to Iron Man and shifts his priority to getting his people off the ground.

Natasha looks over to him.

"I'll zipline down and lead them toward Bryant."

"The minute the Tesseract is out of play the Asgardians are gonna want to fight next to Thor," Clint points out.

Natasha pulls a face.

"Do you ever just think: Damn, I am _so_ glad I have no honor?"

"Only every time I'm in twenty feet of Thor, Nat," Clint says with a smile as he wings over, low speed, bay door still hanging open. Nat's out of her chair. She snaps her zipline to a hook on the flat of the door – then she's off, over the edge, plummeting toward the ground. The line unsnaps by remote control, snaking out the back of the jet, and Natasha calls "Clear" over the headphones.

Clint cusses as the door seals up and cabin pressure optimizes and he gets an eyeful of feedback from the requests he shot over to Operation Control. None of these building designers except Tony thought 'Maybe I should let a Black Hawk land on my roof.' 

Clint thinks that's damn inconsiderate.

He circles the fight from above, feeling like his namesake; like a hawk checking out road kill prospects over a stretch of highway. He doesn't see the Hulk, but he sees a Hulk-sized crater halfway up a building.

The sky above is black. Lightning flashes past him, sonic boom washing over the craft. Thor electrifies Thanos, arcs of blue light crackling over the Titan's armor. Thor follows it up with what should be a crushing blow to the Titan's shoulder – a blow repelled with a shrug. The captain's going toe to toe with Thanos, flaming sword and blazing shield like a knight of old. He's doing battle but mostly skirting out of the way of the Titan's fists and kicks, Cap agile and Thanos just a little less. Neither seems to have the upper hand. The road around them is pulverized from Thanos pounding a braced Steve's boots into the ground from the weight of the impacts to the shield.

War Machine skates on air at low altitude, too fast for the extraterrestrial invader to draw a bead on and still keep up with the fight. Rhodes is unloading full clips of ammo onto Thanos' shoulders. He's putting out as much hurt as a spring shower on a warm day. 

Thor channels two more fearsome bolts into the Titan's back, the sound of their descent deafening even dampened by the quinjet. Clint winces. Even from on high he can read the anger off Thor. Three blows of Mjölnir from behind and it looks like he put a dent in the tougher alien brawler's helmet. 

The Hulk comes raging out of the façade of a clothing store. He grabs the nearest abandoned SUV and leaps high. Steve and Thor backpedal, letting the Hulk smash the vehicle over Thanos' head. The Hulk springs backwards; he anticipated something like the red blast of light that splits the SUV in two, its halve falling on either side of Thanos.

Clint can see the bright line of the huge white-toothed grin of this purple-skinned monster from above. The Titan takes advantage of having half an SUV for each hand, pitching one half at the Hulk and the other at Steve with titanic force, sending them reeling backward. Thanos out of the fray, Clint fires a computer guided missile in. It explodes against the Titan's chest, doing absolutely nothing. Clint curses, weaving out of the way of a ray from Thanos' hand.

The three Asgardians that came in with Agent Lewis and Dr. Foster are running up Madison, weapons drawn. Iron Man reports the Tesseract is airborne and out of Manhattan.

"The op is a success, people. The extraction point is Bryant Park," Clint says, knowing full well he's talking to the air – or maybe to Rhodes, who can already extract himself.

Now Thor's up in Thanos's face. Clint wants to put an arrow in any one of their thick heads – Bruce's or Steve's or Thor's – as bad as he wants to land one on Thanos. The Hulk is running for a parked bus to give beating Thanos with it another try.

The blood drains from Clint's face seeing Thor's on bad footing. However strong Steve is now, he's in a new weight class and out of Thor's. The Asgardian can trade blows with the Titan, but Thor's waning fast. A blow to the top of his head and Thor's on his knees. Thanos has his fist pulled back again, blinding bright with energy. Clint shields his eyes against it. There's a missile from War Machine bursts against Thanos' back. It's no distraction. 

The fatal blow doesn't land. Thor vanishes. Somebody else, all in red, is standing in place of – no, behind where Thor was, out of Thanos' trajectory.

Except Thanos doesn't pause. As his blazing fist plunges down through empty air he opens the palm of his opposite hand, radiant energy unleashed upon Thor's savior – a torrent of energy, colors flashing through it, blowing his fresh opponent off his feet, onto the ground, sending him sliding across the pavement until he his crumpled body meets an unbudging pile of debris.

Thanos does not relent, but digs his feet into the ground and raises his other hand. The torrent becomes a more terrible onslaught yet. Blacks and purples flood the stream, shifting hues of gassy discharge swirl around it. 

The captain halts in his tracks. The blaze surrounding his shield vanishes; Clint puts two and three together and knows Steve's still a super soldier, but he's not supernatural.

In a split Steve he makes his choice, launching himself toward the Titan anew. Surtr's sword remains in his hand. Leaping into the air he brings it down upon the nape of the Titan's neck where armor parts from helmet.

Thanos endures, but Thanos screams. In his pain twists to snatch Hell's soldier by the arm, jerking him forward.

His second massive hand catches Steve's head, arm and head held apart, neck at an awkward angle. A second roar of rage and Steve's skull caves under Thanos' fingertips, crushed one size too small. Thanos twists that head until basic anatomy tells Clint Steve's spine has shattered under the pressure. The Titan flings the limp body away by the arm.

Clint knows retreat is the only option. Hitting the quinjet's speakers he barks: "Disengage! Fucking disengage!"

The Hulk's bus comes hurtling through the air. Clint hears it being blown to pieces, but he's already wheeled in the air for Bryant Park; he can see the remaining Asgardians have heel turned. Clint's already ticking down how long he can wait for them in his mind. 

The air trembles with War Machine unloading all his micro-missiles. Clint hears successive explosions – he guesses the Hulk is pitching everything between him and Thanos back at the Titan. The Hulk's dot's on the move on Clint's map. Clint frowns at Jarvis' lock on Thanos. Whatever the reason, the Hulk is extending his lead.

Clint drops the quinjet in the open green field, last inches a jolt. He leaves her powered up for take-off.

There are civilians boarding. Clint can't think of anything but infection risks, but then what were Natasha and Agent Lewis going to do? Shoot them there in the park?

"Nat, you tell me if the Hulk can make it on here," he yells back to the bay. She's silent but that's how he knows her brain's on nothing but making that call.

"It could close," she shouts back.

"We're in no position to lose that asset," Clint decides aloud and loudly.

He feels the craft sink an inch as the Hulk enters. Natasha yells "Clear!" behind him.

"Hang on," he barks back, accelerating into the open air as fast as the engines will let him even while the bay door is closing behind them. The jet's wings are only halfway transitioned into flight mode when War Machine calls "Incoming!" Clint throws her into a barrel roll, a flash of cosmic radiation blazing through the air in the corner of his vision. The Hulk roars in protest, the civilians scream, but the Hulk braced himself, because his weight doesn't crash from one side of the quinjet to the other. That's all that Clint cares about.

With the jet straining through her transition, the thrusters engage. Clint is light headed with adrenaline – not from the roll but with relief that the engine didn't stall; his choices no longer teeter between crash landing procedures and accelerating to Mach 2. He doesn't know if the jet's stressed wings will transform back, but he'll choose an emergency landing on a landing strip over an incinerated aircraft any day.

"War Machine, did you see what happened to Mephisto?" Clint asks. He doesn't care, not after what the thing did to Steve, except that he cares for what that could mean strategically in the near future.

"He didn't get up, but he disappeared out of there," Rhodes answers.

A shaky Natasha takes a seat in the co-pilot's chair, controlling her breathing until the fear passes.

She's on the same page Clint is. The fear was easier for both of them than trying to make sense out of that disaster is now. Acting despite fear is second nature. Clint checks over his shoulder. The Hulk is rubbing grit from his eyes and brushing off his shoulders, inspecting his body more closely than an invincible, unharmed juggernaut needs to. That tells Clint he has enough focus not to smash a human into pulp in frustration.

It's also a lot better than the Hulk putting his fist through the wall.

The three Asgardians are stoic, still standing; the civilians huddled together on the floor in the near corner; Agent Lewis and Dr. Foster are buckling themselves in.

"What the hell just happened?" Rhodes asks over the intercom.

"I'm slowing her down, War Machine, come in for a landing," Clint orders.

A minute later and War Machine is inside the quinjet. He falls heavily into one of the seats the Hulk didn't destroy when he grabbed hold of those assemblages.

"I don't know what happened, but I know who does," Natasha says, voice even.

"Loki," Clint agrees. "Thor's MIA, but I think he's alive. I'll call it in." His fingers are already tapping the communications panel, requesting a secure line to the Helicarrier.

A glance beside him shows him that Natasha is looking into space. Clint bets she's seeing Steve.

He can't let himself, because he's led over a hundred SHIELD operations. There's no room in his head for anything but following regulations and bringing his operatives in safe.

**(The Helicarrier)**

Steve Rogers is dead.

Fury stands at his post overlooking the bridge, the picture of professional reserve in the face of crushing defeat. He was due to be relieved by Agent Hill two hours ago, but gestured for her to let it pass. She booked no argument. Emblematic gestures are humanity's sustenance in dangerous times. His agents work on under his watch.

That's one reason his visitors are such a surprise. The bridge is running fully staffed, but Fury is the only one who stares when the exotically costumed strangers appear on the stairs to the command console in front of him. He draws his gun, training it on one man's breast. He calls for all hands to battle stations. Considering the men are unseen, he's not surprised that no one reacts.

He _is_ surprised that his step back takes him behind his own body. In that moment his gun disappears. He lowers his hands and, with caution, steps around himself, studying his own familiarly animated face before turning his attention on the intruders.

One's Caucasian features are so dark he might be Irish, or Spanish or Italian. He looks like he came fresh out of a costume store. His blue tunic is medieval; the yellow sash tied at his waist Chinese; his black slacks are almost American, except that they're sewn to the soles of his shoes. His garish red, high-collared cloak with ostentatious gold trim billows behind him in a non-existent wind. The arc-reactor sized cloak pin on his chest holding the cloak in place gleams like polished brass. His fitted, cheetah spotted gloves are bright orange. In Fury's inexpert opinion on fashion, that was a bad life choice.

The man who ran through a Party City with his eyes closed's black, dreadlocked companion who wears a white circle of paint intersected by a V on his forehead may have stepped out of the same costume store, but Fury isn't sure what he's supposed to be. Parts of his costume look like somebody's traditional dress. Fury doesn't know whose because they aren't commonplace in American cinema. They call to mind pictures from Africa and New Orleans at Mardi Gras. The man's upper body is bare except for a white triangle of lizard or maybe snake skin patterned with diamonds Fury thinks grew on the original, unknown animal. He wears a necklace made of bone and teeth around his neck. Leather and metal bands decorate his arms. His sash is red and his pants green. The pants, cut off like capris, might actually be denim. He stands barefoot on the Helicarrier floor.

Both men have streaks of white like differently-patterned skunk stripes in their hair.

For once in his life the director is at a total loss for words. This situation is incredible, but Fury isn't Tony Stark so he's not going to ask them what holiday it is.

"I am Doctor Stephan Strange, and my associate is Brother Voodoo," the more colorfully decked out costumer says in American English.

Fury doesn't know what he expected to hear – one European accent or another.

"Alright," Fury says, waiting for a better explanation.

"We are as you: Those whose locations and associates mankind must never know," Brother Voodoo says. With his accent Fury buys that he's from Haiti. He smiles, but he has the same cold eyes as a deep cover operative. Fury begins to take them both a little more seriously. "I know what you're thinking, Director," the man goes on. "Can _these_ men in _those_ costumes be serious? We held the same conversation about you and your Avengers."

Fury digests that.

"Then we're all on the same page. Almost."

Stephan Strange – Fury isn't convinced the man holds a doctorate in anything – speaks in all seriousness:

"I am the plane you know as Midgard's Sorcerer Supreme. Brother Voodoo is aiding me by sending his brother's spirit to possess your body. I hope you will understand me, Director Fury, when I say that when you returned Loki Odinson to Asgard as a criminal it was I who Odin called to speak for Earth at his trial."

"That's great," Fury says, powerfully annoyed. "If you're all that, we could have used you in New York."

Strange frowns and his brow knits apologetically, not with remorse but in a polite way that tells Fury he's about to come out with an excuse.

"I was prepared for the Tesseract to awaken on Earth. When it awoke, I devoted my energies to concealing its presence from the outer horrors," he says. "What I was not prepared for was Thanos to hold a scepter with which to detect and influence it. Although Loki came to Earth, my first duty remained dire. Odin sent word on the wings of his celestial ravens that Thor would contend with Loki."

"You may have heard that Odin is dead, and now Thor has vanished. I'm going to hope you're here to put a shoulder into this with the rest of us," Fury says.

Strange shakes his head, and Brother Voodoo's takes his turn with the apologetic look.

"Thanos stands at the threshold of divinity. Those beings who would intercede on their own behalf would leave nothing of Earth behind them," Strange says. "I am in the same position as before. Should Earth's sorcerers be compromised, Thanos would be only one of many problems.

"When Mephisto tracked down and took up with Thanos I had faith that however terrible the cost, Earth would be defended. Ironic though it is, you can have faith a devil will look after its own interests. Mephisto – an entirely astral, soulless being – would be instantly devoured and assimilated should he touch the Cube. His only aim could be to contain it.

"Now, Mephisto's sudden fall has turned unwanted attention upon Earth in the form of shocked competitors. I, Brother Voodoo and those aligned with us are engaged in a deadly game of chess confounding the forces of distant hells and the Dark Dimension." Doctor Strange either pauses dramatically or is actually picking out his words: "As the departed Odin's secret ally, I bring you Odin's wisdom."

Fury knows the value of dramatic tension, but he's more than ready for information he can act on.

"Hit me with it."

"Odin scryed upon Thor's arrival on Earth. He saw then that the Avenger you call Iron Man wore an artifact of considerable power. At Odin's urging I pursued both modern and arcane means to accrue greater knowledge of that artifact."

"My friend means that he started with Google," Brother Voodoo points out, corner of his lip quirking. "The internet was invented _after_ Strange got his job."

"Thank you," Strange says, scoffing with good humor. "My research has convinced me Howard Stark based the design of his arc reactor on his knowledge of the Tesseract. It is an imperfect alternative to the devoured scepter, but his son Anthony's improvements upon the arc reactor make it a candidate for connecting with, even influencing the Tesseract." Strange passes a hand over his slicked back hair, cringing. "—strictly speaking, Odin's wisdom was that the two artifacts remain in a state of mutual repulsion and never under any circumstances intersect, but now the hour is late."

"If I'm remembering correctly, and I am because I was there, the first time that scepter came in contact with the Tesseract the entire NASA-SHIELD Dark Energy facility collapsed in the explosion. That killed a lot of good people" Fury says.

"The hour is _very_ late," Brother Voodoo says. "Director Fury, we have no idea what will happen if you employ the arc reactor. We have theories that are hard to disentangle from jargon, and Tony Stark knows the arc reactor better than we do."

"Good thing I speak innuendo, gentlemen," Fury says. "Right now the Tesseract's in our hands and I have an Avenger dead and an Avenger missing and Earth's good friend Loki to put back in the pressure cooker. But I _will_ set Iron Man on calculating the payload and fallout of that detonation."

"We name the decision a choice both out of our hands and jurisdiction," Strange says.

Fury startles when he's suddenly feet behind where he stood, back in his own skin, looking out his good eye. It's just a flinch of his head; nobody marks it. 

First Mephisto, and now a couple of trumped up magicians. 

Fury makes an executive decision to, if any of them come out of this conflict alive, figure out exactly how to psychic-proof the Helicarrier.

****

**(This Past Hour: New York City)**

The NYPD is establishing a perimeter around the scene of the fight. Rescue workers and the V's are blocks away, working the rubble of the collapsed Helmsley Building. Dogs can't get smallpox, thank god, so canine search and rescue is on the ground in full force.

The metahuman perpetrator has left the city. Officer Vargas feels like he's in a J. J. Abrams movie and an unknown monster could rip his head off out of nowhere, but the thing was spotted crossing a bridge out of the city, jumping quarantine barriers, so the police are moving in to save whoever they can.

Vargas left Buck waiting on the sidewalk down the block, the battle-broken streets no place for a horse to try his footing. Gun drawn and bullet chambered, Vargas approaches the body lying in a heap, two other officers moving with him. His mind's not letting him make sense of what he's seeing. The other officers aren't saying a damn thing.

A drying blood splatter on the stone seven feet up tells him the body hit the wall and then it fell. What's unclear is how bad the situation is – if it can still get up and if, Walking Dead style, it'll be hungry. 

Nobody's taking chances.

Vargas is going to cry. It's going to soak his gauze mask, but it's coming.

He swallows, taking a close look at the details instead of the big picture. Head crushed. All the blood that gushed out of that soaking the hood and staining the face. One eye socket broken, eye exposed. The face is turned maybe one hundred twenty degrees to the side. Limbs are a jumble. The body had to be dead before it hit the ground – as if it could be anything else with pieces of skull jammed into the brain.

Vargas crouches and pushes the body's shoulder away from him in one direction. It limply falls back in place.

"We have a body," the first officer to Vargas' right orders over his walkie. "Get the coroner. The morgue. Whoever we've still got."

"That's _Captain America,_ " says the guy even further right. Matt Davies. Good guy. The tremor of horror in his voice speaks for all of them. Vargas sniffs back the tears coming on strong. He thinks of his kid. He thinks stickers and an action figure and a black and white World War II propaganda film on TCM.

"Don't even," he says to Davies.

"You get it? It's _Captain America._ We're all _fucked_ Vargas."

"He said put a lid on it," the third cop says. Stu something. He used to work child abduction before quarantine barriers were erected all over.

"The hell did he say?" calls another cop from twenty feet off.

"He said it's Captain America," a fifth cop carrying a metal crowd control barrier past them to set up down the street says says, her voice quavering like Davies'.

Vargas lets the tears roll, standing there staring down at the blood soaked red, white and, before all the blood, mostly-blue.

"Have some damn respect," he barks. He tries to say the next part lower, but real firm. He doesn't know if civilians are coming to check out the scene yet. These past few minutes he hasn't been looking around. "We don't wanna start a panic."

"Jesus Christ in heaven," the woman, Officer Reneshia Oakley says. She's come back and she's shaking her head. "—you three. You don't want a panic then get back from here and help get the perimeter up," she orders, turning and walking away.

She has her white armband on. She's a cop – and a V, too. 


	10. Chapter 10

**(Now: Mephisto's Hell)**

"What have you done? Where have you brought me?" Thor bellows. There are grand gestures being made with his dwarf-forged hammer and Thor's expression has so curdled with rage that Mephisto is given reason to contemplate if the god could twist his own face off with his scowl.

Slumped on his throne and letting the energies of his principality feed into the gulf within him, Mephisto pinches his forehead.

"The yelling has to stop," he says, frowning at the young and furious god. "Of the two of us, one just absorbed the power of an exploding star. It wasn't you."

Mephisto feels an equally angry, unarmed soldier but still potent soldier weaving its way toward him and inwardly grows in spite.

Thor is yelling again.

Mephisto doesn't remember his own fledgling hellspawn being as contemptuous as Thor is now, and Blackheart has actively sought to depose him.

The devil is running the milliseconds that decided his loss through his aching mind. He had three thoughts: appear, remove Thor from harm's way, disappear. Thanos had two: see Mephisto, unleash his full power on Mephisto. It was appearing with the power to relocate Thor on his fingertips that undid him. If he had taken the instant longer to vanish them both simultaneously, would Thor have died?

Mephisto knows for certain and feels bilious resentment that Thanos had his own two actions coordinated days or weeks in advance. He hates it because he expected it, yet underestimated the Titan's reaction time.

Thor continues railing.

Manifesting a gag for the god is too taxing a thought to consider. The devil suspects he might get it wrong and put it somewhere inside Thor's head – deeply satisfying, but pact breaking.

He shuts his eyes and listens to the sweet, endless psychic shrieking of the tortured souls that surround him – at least until Thor has him by the throat, lifting him two feet above his throne. Mephisto reluctantly opens one eye.

"You _will_ tell me," the god says, spittle flecking Mephisto's face.

Mephisto chooses to relent, if unsure making concessions to Thor will calm him any more than letting him spend tantrum.

"Repeat the question," he requests through a constricted throat.

Thor's face is not three inches from Mephisto's and still unpleasantly contorted.

"What did Loki have you do?" Thor says through clenched teeth. That controls the spitting.

Mephisto would answer, but Steve Rogers had arrived and yells his name with equally mind-splitting volume and aggression.

Thor, confounded, drops the Hell lord back into his throne, taking a step back, eyes searching Steve's unfamiliar form. Flames lick the hot air from the soldier's empty eyes and mouth.

"You're completely useless now," Mephisto accuses with a hiss before Steve can begin his own tirade. It shuts the human up, if only so that Steve's expression can better broadcast his pique.

"Steve?" Thor says in confusion.

"He's dead," Mephisto fills in, taking passing glee from Thor's stricken look. A smile grows on his lips, but that readily fades back into a frown. "You're not," he adds, unsure whether or not Thor is in any state to work that out for himself.

He hasn't determined if Thor is only very angry or actually quite stupid.

"And Thanos will win," Thor says, now quietly.

Mephisto sits up in his throne, his head clearing, although only a little.

"Let's not rush to conclusions. If Thanos achieves the Tesseract we _all_ will pay."

"What are you going to do about it?" Steve asks, his blazing gaze still fixed upon the devil.

Mephisto despises Steve's defiance. He plots carving the human's corrupted soul apart day after day – a modern Prometheus stretched by chains, screams carried on Hellfire, naked and helpless body falling into fleshy pieces to sizzle on the stone.

He's sure he'll be up to that an indefinite while later.

" _I_ am going to wait for our pleasant friend Loki, because, as I was just telling his brute brother, I have been battered with enough energy to destroy a solar system," he says. A thought comes to mind. His eyes narrow with compelling visions of vengeance, forgetting Steve's impudence. "That _cost_ Thanos. If we're lucky, it cost him dearly. Loki's incestuous obsession has placed an ace in our hand."

Thor looks at him blankly.

"Poker," Mephisto begins. He immediately gives up in aggravation, brushing the whole thing away. "—forget it. I mean that we're all lucky your little brother lusts after your naked flesh."

Thor pauses and works out what Mephisto means. Understanding soon appears on his face, giving the devil hope that he's not a body of raw muscle without an intellect.

"…what about me? I want back in the fight," Steve says. Mephisto hears thinly veiled, seething anger in the soldier's words. He enjoys the knowledge that the human's fever-pitched hatred is consuming what's left of him from within.

"My influence over the material world has waned. I am a new moon, obscured entirely," Mephisto says. The devil touches a hand to his own breast. "As much as I dearly wish I could, I can't reanimate you as a gory scion of my Hell's broadly-undiminished might."

Steve's fury redoubles:

"I want _back_ in the _fight_."

Mephisto decides he should consume himself somewhere else. Steve disappears to where a million grasping, starving soulless with spindly, unnaturally strong arms, eye sockets weeping pus and toothless maws will squabble at tearing him to pieces until Mephisto feels like taking a hands on approach to his new prize.

Thor's voice gravel-roughened with anger. Sparks leap over Mjölnir's uru surface.

"What have you done with him?"

Mephisto gestures to their environs.

"Look around you, Áss. Open your ears," he says. "This is my body. The flames that burn on its stony surfaces are the acid of my stomach. With them I scorch away every memory, every dream, every _sensation_ of the souls within me save for their pain and despair. That is damnation. Your brother fed me Steve Rogers. Today forward and forever I will his soul digest, long after all have forgotten the name 'Steve Rogers'."

Sorrow-stricken, Thor's looks hopelessly around them, and then to Mephisto, again.

"Cannot this fate be undone?"

The devil, back to languishing in misery on his throne, offers no more than a shrug.

"Take it up with Loki. In fact, take _everything_ up with Loki. This is all on him," he says. He offers his temporary houseguest a thin smile. 

Thor, denied the answer he wanted, is back on the verge of yelling again, except the Áss is thinking, now, and checks himself, even if his breath had quickened. His clear eyes warn Mephisto that Mephisto is not the only one fantasizing about dismemberments.

"I will speak with Loki alone," Thor warns.

That sounds positively stimulating. Mephisto wouldn't dream of interfering. Scrying, of course, but interfering? Perish it.

The fatigued devil raises his arched eyebrows.

"Have your way with him however you wish. I'm finished. I am fallen. Floored," he concedes. "—don't confuse that with my ability to obliterate you at any time. My worst day is others' best." His face becomes a mockery of a tragedy mask, frown inhumanly downturned. His voice reeks of self-pity: " _This_ is a _terrible_ day. If I had thought it _inconvenient_ to allow Loki to bind, abuse and fuck me, I now fully acknowledge his superior evaluation of how complacent I have become in these past millennia."

The staggered look on Thor puts an ear to ear smile on Mephisto's face. The Áss' gaze falls away in a cringe of pain, all his misery now internalized. So distracted, the listless Thor looks afar and leaves for other vistas of Hell, pain-riddled from Loki's black work.

Loki. The mean little thing he's moved all his chips to now that Captain America is dead.

Mephisto maintains the intuition that he's placed a good bet. Then, it's a fucking shame that if it pays out he can't draw a new hand and play a second round. This time for the Jötunn.

Of course – naturally – Mephisto will see Loki again very soon if Thanos in fact achieves the Tesseract.

Mephisto must confess that Loki is not quite so enticing that he relishes the idea of suffering together until their inevitable obliteration.

Mephisto closes his eyes again. He does not sleep, but basks like a lizard in the agonized screaming that rises, sweetest music, from the unending orgy of violence across his vast principality.

\----

The vastness of Mephisto's Hell is incomparable to any palace Thor has walked. Its vaults rise to heights dizzying even for one who may take to the air at will. Jagged columns of stone populate the space between those vaults and the lava below. Narrow paths skirt the walls of the plane's sprawling heart.

Hell is on fire. Everywhere flames rise from rocks, burning silent as candles but leaping and flickering as if fed from fuel. Gouts of hellfire blaze to fantastic heights from the lava, roaring with turbulent hot air.

Misshapen nightmare creatures fly the caverns, their relationship to one another incalculable. A fleshy, beating heart with one exposed, roaming eyeball floats past Thor on whatever business it could have. High above something black, dripping with green ichor and made of countless wings spirals through the hot air, the aberration surely many times Thor's size. Monsters unknown swim the lava below, glimpses of them cresting its surface. Devils and demons, some refreshingly bipedal, some sporting orifices in wrong places, some leaping from column to column like spiders traffic the stones. Those with eyes pause and cast voracious looks at Thor – those without eyes still stop and strain toward him – but all ultimately pass him by.

There is no clearing his head in this chaos. He dares not take refuge in the smaller, darker spaces or passages that honeycomb the walls. From these issues noises as unforgettable as they are soul wrenching. The maddening sounds bring on fits of despair Thor waits out with clenched teeth and eyes fixed on some stony feature.

Loki's betrayal carries a hauntingly familiar chill. The same cold shock, like plunging through the ice of a winter lake, of surviving attempted execution to return to Asgard to a brother screaming of disowning himself. The memory of Loki in the light of Yggdrasil as reflected through icy branches, his tear streaked face, his frenzy, his vile words – threatening of Jane's rape or murder, his violence and, ultimately, his fall return immediately to Thor, as if the conflict was not years but days ago.

The thought of Loki's blue eyes gazing with erotic, carnivorous longing on another body ensnares Thor in jealous rage. _To bind and fuck me,_ the devil said. Those words taste of truth. How thoroughly Thor cleaved to the fantasy that the sadistic violence his brother displayed on earth had been quelled by his own endless ministrations. 

The thought of Steve – no longer Steve Rogers, no longer human, a fiery soul distorted by hatred – brings tears of mourning. The parching heat dries his cheeks. 

So much he had wished to make up for. So sure he had been that, given hope, Loki would be able and choose to heal. Sure, even, that he _saw_ Loki healing from past neglect as a sensitive soul engulfed in vigorous warriors, from the shock of his heritage and from psychic violation.

In his youth he had been genuinely blind to his brother's devious character. Today, he names his blindness willful.

\----

Loki is secure in his kingship when he leaves Býleistr and Þjazi as the heads of the Jötnar strike force. He has led the brutes to victory foray after foray. Surtr is dead and the sword of Múspell's fire has been claimed by a being not of Múspell's body, and so the fire Jötnar have been stripped of their elemental fury and taken on weaker flesh. The only task left for Loki's war band is to slay their remaining cousins or drive them back to Múspellsheimr. The fire Jötnar are as helpless as babes against the frost Jötnar's –Arugelmir's – power.

What joy Loki took in his successes Thanos fast obliterated. He learned from the lips of a human that his father and no doubt his mother lie dead. That Asgard has fallen. Such rage and such sorrow gripped him, yet no tears could he shed. Once again he bristled with dangerous, razor-sharp spikes of ice.

He had as soon quelled his first distress as a demon appeared to him, speaking of Thor in Hell.

Loki has since clung to the thought of Thor as he put his army in order, shifted his shape to his dearly-missed male body with its cool but not freezing skin, and woven a portal of dark energy to transport him to Mephisto's realm: Thor is in Hell, and so he is alive.

When he last left Thor, he had been furious. Now he barely remembers why, yearning to be in Thor's arms, to have Thor in _his_ arms, to have never left the Helicarrier for war, to have never left _Vanaheimr_ , for something as simple as to touch his brother. His breast is sore from yearning so dearly for all and any of it, and the rest of him afraid of the brother he will find upon his arrival.

His fears are affirmed with one look at his brother. Thor's armor is dirtied, scuffed and dented from battles recently fought and Thor's anger is tremendous. He carries Mjölnir in his right hand, clutching her close to his palm, his grip ripe for swinging. Eyes widened, Loki's mind races with ways to deflect or deter the altercation about to begin. He could no sooner wish away a tempest. King though he now is, all he can do is keep his back straight and hold his ground. He forbids himself to think on how little a blow would mean to a hated body of ice.

As soon as Thor lays eyes upon him, he is in his face, the static electricity prickling Loki's body hairs, and – as if they were more than inches apart – Thor is yelling at the top of his lungs.

"Steve Rogers is dead. And _damned_."

"Thor."

"And you committed infidelity with that crimson piece of _scum!_ "

"Thor—"

Loki's placating gestures fail completely. Instead, he's been laid out on his freshly hurting back, his swimming gaze refocusing itself on the cavern ceiling, his jaw aching from the left hook his brother dealt him and skull aching from a knock against the uneven stone.

Thor withheld Mjölnir; that small favor leaves Loki's jaw unbroken that he might yet speak. 

Loki climbs to his feet undeterred, too proud to be lain low. He wipes the blood from his split lower lip. Hell surrounds them, but he has eyes only for his lover – for as many practical and survival oriented as sentimental reasons.

Thor stands wracked with torment, at once disbelieving and accusing, his eyes rimmed red. Teeth clenched, he searches Loki's face as if in it he could glimpse not only Loki's emotion but his motives. He will uncover nothing by that tact.

"I have never betrayed you. Every action I have taken has been to preserve you," Loki says.

"I was prepared to die as a warrior," Thor says.

Traditions as ancient as the Realm Eternal itself weight his words. 

Loki despises those strictures. Outrage overwhelms him as he dares to wonder which of his crimes Thor most resents: Steve's damnation, a dally with Mephisto or to be deprived of dying in war.

Loki despises Asgard, their dead father, right now even their mother, Sif and Mephisto, Jane, Thanos, the Avengers and anything else that has ever kept his will and Thor's from being as one, down to his own accursed acts.

"I was not prepared to lose you! You would have forsaken your vow, chasing your death and abandoning me to Thanos' tortures! Let all the rest be slain. I care nothing for any of them! Fouler powers yet I would conspire with if it meant your life be spared. I am a monster, brother, but I am the monster that loves you."

Thor holds his ground, forbidding. His agony is apparent but so, too, his resolve.

"You rightly name my own one betrayal amidst the uncounted flock of yours," he says, unchanging in fortitude. "I would I did not love you so. I would I was party to none of this, Loki. I have harnessed myself to you – _believing_. I will no longer be subject to your manipulations. At any time you could have explained yourself to me!"

Loki paces the steps that bring him face to face with his brother, again, seething with the urge to harm.

"Explained myself? Explained I would not stand for your glorious Asgardian death that your whole life had built toward? Explained the human race depended on Steve Rogers' descent to depravity? Explained I am _sadist_ and for all your tender care Thanos has left me with an indescribable urge to drink the pain of others? Explained I _value_ my body differently than you yours? A tool at my disposal. And what would you have _said_ , Thor?"

A long inhalation on Thor's part. Then he disappears – not in body but suddenly and totally from trading fury for fury.

"There is no knowing, now," Thor says, voice unsteady with the last of his anger but that mastered beneath unprecedented control.

Loki cannot but gape, eyes slowly widening. A new, nameless terror grips him as he takes his turn seeking answers in Thor's countenance.

Thor's voice no longer quavers.

"Steve Rogers is a prisoner of Hell. I bid you tell me how we free him."

Loki's voice cracks on a laugh, eyes remaining wide, incredulity growing.

" _Free_ him? Only with a contract. Only with a pact. Only if we surrender a boon Mephisto prizes more – if such a boon exists." Loki remembers Mephisto spoke of Thor, but Thor stands in Hell incorruptible. Loki's surety the devil would trade a soul harvested in full ripeness for a pure, belligerent one renders not speaking of it no deception. He tastes bitterness that he is powerless to grant Thor what is a small wish on an immortal scale, but shakes his head. "Captain Rogers freely damned himself and a devil engulfed him. He is of Mephisto and of Hell."

Thor bears Loki's certainty stoically. Loki wishes he would yell. Instead he moves on, determination unwavering.

"Return me to Earth, Loki, that although Asgard has fallen that planet and its people may yet be preserved."

Panic renders Loki unfit to obey, his tempestuous emotions polluted black in an eruption of paranoid terror. The heat of Hell expedites sweat's rise from his skin.

"—I won't. You intend to sever yourself from me. Do the _humans_ truly matter to you more than I! You persist in betraying your word to me! Swore you not to play the fool, to play my pawn, indeed to sacrifice yourself for me no matter _what_ indignity might be visited upon you?"

Thor's voice remains stern, but in it is fresh confidence.

"I cannot both keep that promise and protect you from Thanos. I am blind in your presence. You ever misguide me. You torment me with your moods and your half explanations! If I am addled with worship of you and can no longer appraise that which threatens us, then what have I to offer you? Seek no further to claim rights to me. You refused betrothal, and I am not your subject. I _will_ go to Earth, and I will put an end this conflict."

Loki's mouth had returned to hanging open. His teeth snap together and his lips flinch in a snarl. He is drowning: underwater in an ocean of poisonous malaise. Thor stands before him unaffected by either his anger or his agony. The Jötunn feels himself in tears, tears at last. With those the tears spilling over his lashes and running cool down his cheeks, his memory vows Thor forever leaves him in tears.

He sucks in air in his turn, shaking with anger.

Thor does not bow beneath the pressure of Loki's emotion.

Thor does not plead for Loki to show reason.

He stands waiting.

Loki has never seen this face on his brother, a stony countenance without affront or compassion.

"And what of me?" Loki demands, words quaking with rage. "Am I to be left behind in Hell?"

"You will come with me and you will fight at my side. If it is love you feel toward me and not entitlement, you will transport us to SHIELD's Helicarrier. I will you to believe in _me_. I understand, now, what it will take from me to be true to you, despite your daggers in my flesh and your discredit of every value I hold dear."

Loki's breaths are dragging his eyes' own salty water into his lungs, the sound of them rasping in the hot, suffocating air. He looks away from Thor, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, his weight shifting from one foot to the other. His lip tastes of blood. He desires battle.

He sucks the blood from his lip and stares at the stony floor of Mephisto's Hell across which dance flames without origin. 

For a moment can think of nothing else but Thor's embrace in the late hours of night, warming his corpse-cool body through.

They have shared kisses; letting Thor inside him when Thor is wont is by now effortless; hands calloused by war have trespassed in all ways upon his flesh.

For all they have freely given of their bodies, Thor's best side is when he's smiling freely, eyes alive with his own mischief making. How rarely Loki sees it: only in their most private of moments; no fault of Thor's but Loki's own.

Loki asks himself through the pall if he can have faith in his brother, and it is Thor in clever playfulness he thinks to.

"Yes," he says, still not meeting those eyes, his pride stinging. "Yes. I'll _do it._ "

"For this you have my gratitude," Thor says.

Loki wavers in disbelief, gaze only skirting this stranger that is his brother, set apart from him. Miserable he gathers the dark energies within him. He feels nothing like a king, and neither like a child. A man only, and alone, but not lost. His history is laid clear.

Powers summoned, he stares at last at Thor. His own expression goes lax in the face of his reality, save for his tear-filled eyes. Although red still rims Thor's eyes, he is not crying.

It is a small thing to send his thoughts racing to the room they shared upon SHIELD's vessel in which they both slept and made love. His sorcery, learned from their father, enwraps them both in darkness and then they are gone from Mephisto's sweltering kingdom.

Thor looks their surroundings over with care, as if they could be the product of Loki's illusion. Trusting their reality, he, to Loki's disbelief, leaves their cabin to go on with his business without addressing his still-smarting brother. 

Loki's vengeful heart is overgrown with thorny black defiance.

For a minute of his time under the electric lights he thinks only of going to the devil whose searing embrace would mean the end of not all pain but all autonomy. _There_ waits an endless summer of depravity where his most twisted whims become paint in a hideous mural that spans creation.

The pain, his heart tells him, will never leave him, whatever he choose.

Who in two-thousand years has brought him more pain than Thor?

Loki's intellect bitterly reminds himself that his heart has had its own part to play in every insult he has ever suffered. So stark and punishing is its assertion Loki shortens up to heed it. He mistakes it for a moment of clarity only to realize how hotly he yearns for Thor in the depths of greed.

He will not be without his brother. The unbearable thought that he ever could squelches his vigor for rebellion. The truth strips him bare. He is without means to fasten Thor's devotion other than to follow as Thor beckons. His helplessness repulses him.

One fact stands. His toil and the torturous yearnings which boil in its wake will come to nothing if Thanos achieves his aims.

Choosing Thor and choosing vengeance, he turns his mind to Thanos' end, making his way to bridge in the wake of his brother.

\----

Thor thought once, not so long ago, that he had been taught all a man could know of humility. He had imagined after standing in the rain, Mjölnir unbudging against his paltry mortal strength, with uncounted humans looking down upon his failure that he had learned shame.

Left with the news that his misdeeds had resulted in his father's expiration in place of the Odinsleep, believing himself banished forever from Asgard, he thought he had learned all the hollow pain of loneliness. 

He knows today that he had little more than sampled those hurts, and had sampled them only briefly.

Shame is his lover cuckolding him with a creature viler than Thor imagined existed. Shame is the knowledge rippling through him that if Loki's acts _were_ meant to preserve him, he spent the credit owed to them without understanding that living and dying as a warrior should live and die would, in Loki's heart, be no more than betraying his solemn oath. Shame is each traitorous thought wishing Loki has so thoroughly deluded him that if he gives these weeks more thought his own honor will look not so spare.

Loneliness is the knowledge not only that his parents are dead and should he live to see Asgard again it will be the crippled remains of his beloved homeland. Loneliness is the splinter lodged deep in his heart to ever remind him the lover he will never knowingly betray is never again to be trusted. Loneliness is the seat of empty throne that awaits him once his duty to Earth and securing his brother's safety is spent, the beginning of a lifetime of responsibilities and the end of his many adventures.

He steps through the doorway to the Helicarrier's bridge. The first unmistakable fact is the Tesseract sits in the middle of the conference table. He next sees Sif, Hogun and Fandral, hale and whole. Volstagg is not with them. One look shared with the three of them tells Thor all he needs to know of Volstagg.

Jane is here. The dark hollows of her eyes tell him she has not been sleeping. The way her hair hangs together in ropes tells him she has sweated heavily and not bathed in days. She looks at him, but doesn't look him in the eyes, and looks away. He could not have more pride for her, nor more respect. An engraving on a building floor lauds her not half so proudly.

Thor swallows, although his mouth remains dry, and he approaches her. He is certain of himself when he speaks, although unsure if his words will be a balm:

"Was I right, Jane? I believed your work invaluable and your skills without peer. I find you here beside those detailed to protect the Tesseract. I can naught other than think you devised its escape to Earth, and so, too, ensured my dear friends' survival. I owe you gratitude beyond words."

Jane's fatigued detachment falls away; her expression crumbles. Thor has seen this look before on many who have fought a long campaign, coveting away their fear, purpose their lifeline. He has, after enduring long stress, collapsed, himself – privately if he can at all ensure it.

He offers an open arm to her. With shaky steps she comes into his embrace, pressing her forehead against his breast plate and shutting tight her eyes. The bridge around them and all his own troubles disappear, Jane the sole focus of his attention. He shelters her against him, speaking quietly to her, voice and eyes warm.

"I bid you rest. You are as brave an ally as all I call my friends. Though at this moment it seems to you you will never again find sleep, it will come upon you swiftly should you but lie down. All else can wait."

She is not crying, but the rise and fall of her shoulder tell him of stress bordering on panic. Her delicate hands are curled against his abdomen. She opens her eyes but only studies closely the midline of his armor.

"Thor," she whispers. "I could be infected."

Thor is shot with dread as if an arrow passed through his breast. His mind refuses to accept even the possibility.

"Think no more of it today," he urges. "If it be true I will do all that I can for you. What resources are left to me I will exhaust."

Jane laughs, the giddy laugh of a woman half-senseless from exertion. She looks up at him. She looks sorry for him. She looks scared. Her smile names her incredulous.

"Don't. Don't do that to yourself, Thor. Asgard's healers have already worked on it, and Earth's, and the Shi'ar's…" She shakes her head. Her voice becomes both smaller and weaker but her smile wider. "Don't. Please. But I'll go get some rest. I promise."

Thor forgoes belligerence. He is tasked with much. He or Earth surviving the weak is uncertain. He can't concede the point, but he can let her leave and find a quiet place.

"Go. Sleep away the trials you have endured."

Hugging her to him reassuringly, he then relinquishes his embrace. Jane steps back, still smiling up at him. She glances around the bridge. He can see her working out the first step of achieving her task. Thinking is easy for her, and yet, despite the little time they have shared, he is familiar with her 'thinking face.'

"Keep the world safe until I wake up," she orders, looking up at him with untarnished trust in his martial endurance, her indomitable spirit impressing him with the gravity of her request.

With solemnity, he nods. She heads to speak to a nearby Helicarrier officer.

The world filters back into Thor's perception. It is transparent to him – and, he is sure, everyone who attended them – that he yet loves her, although Loki he loves more. 

He spares a glance for his brother, who has joined them on the bridge. He is truly grateful Loki chose to join them and did not disappear to brood, or worse. He can share it only briefly, for all his pain again surges to the fore. He looks away to assess the warriors gathered before him. Darcy Lewis sits at the conference table with a heavily bandaged arm looking as exhausted as Jane, but she is of SHIELD now. Thor knows she must stay and provide Nick Fury with information. Barton and Romanov are here, as well as Stark and Rhodes, Fury, Hill and Banner.

"Confirm for me where you've been," Fury says to him, putting everybody's attention on Thor.

"In Hell. Loki formed an accord with Mephisto to preserve my life," Thor says. He doesn't understand the exact details and does not want to. "I know not what transpired upon Earth after my translocation, but my understanding is that Mephisto was done grievous harm by Thanos and Steve Rogers slain." Fury confirms it with a nod. Thor remembers even as he speaks of the unspeakable that he has brought back, too, hopeful news. "The captain is lost to us. In Hell he will forever reside." He gives the gravity of that proclamation its due moment so that all may comprehend it, then goes on: "Although in combat Thanos appeared to us indefatigable, it is Mephisto's belief that Thanos exerted much of his power to cripple him and slay Steve Rogers. In Mephisto's estimation, when next we face Thanos we should find a more tractable opponent." 

"I can't tell you how much I want that to be true," Bruce says from his seat at the table. "The rational me knows you don't live thirty-thousand years getting by on luck. The rest of me refuses to believe what my fists were telling me."

"We've got the Tesseract right here in front of us. Thanos can't lay his hands on it. That matters, people," Barton says, certainty cutting through the pall of sorrow and anxiety surrounding the assembled.

" _That's_ doing us a boatload of good," Tony says. He gets short with people when he's in pain. Thor wonders just how deeply Rogers' death and the terrible facts surrounding it are affecting him.

"Darcy has directly contacted the Tesseract and shared productive communion," Fandral says.

A fatigued Darcy sharpens at the prompt, squirming in her chair until the result amounts to sitting straighter.

"I did," she says. "I know some other people here have gone mind to mind with it before, but things are a little different now that it absorbed the memories from that scepter Loki brought to Earth. Odin told Jane that scepter was basically the remains of another Tesseract. Minus for us: That one had a really bad time."

Loki takes a step forward, offering in a dull voice:

"My father spoke to me of the Tesseract. He spoke of it as the 'Cosmic Cube' and called it 'the throes of labor in the birth of a divinity of the highest order.'"

Thor would yearn for his brother to be any less lifeless sounding, were Loki's resignation not the fruit of his own wickedness.

"Yeah. So, the Tesseract is one Cosmic Cube and another was the Shaper of Worlds. That one became a God with a capital G but the people who raised it, our friends the Skrulls, didn't appreciate that. So, it literally erased half a galaxy and then I guess gave up on life; it turned into a marble Thanos stuck in a sceptre." Darcy wrinkles her nose, frowning. She casts a glance to the Cosmic Cube on the conference table, then sighs. "Maybe it's my biological clock ticking but the Tesseract is just a baby. It doesn't know what it wants, or what it is. It's met a lot of people but most of them have been really shitty to it. My professional opinion? It's having a pre-life crisis."

"I can't promise I'm going to make life any easier for it," Fury says, arms crossed and eye on the Tesseract. "Choice A in my book is opening negotiations with it and getting the thing to pick a side. Ours."

"I believe from what I learned of it in my time with Thanos that he foresees molding the Tesseract to fit the designs of his unyielding will," Loki says. "Darcy's little brain, or Barton's, or _mine_ cannot produce the magnitude of certainty and depth of guidance to put in order the Tesseract's enormous mind. You could no sooner make an ant the acting president of the United States."

"I wanna tell you how _happy_ I am that you've joined the rest of us in the anthill," Stark says. Rhodes' look warns Tony not to start pitting ego against ego, but Stark shows no signs of heeding him.

"If we had some way of knowing just how much weaker Thanos is, we'd know if this was amenable to a military solution," Hill says.

"What military?" Banner says ruefully. "Quarantine was ever, at best, a short term stop loss. _Variola_ is moving up the supply lines into the ranks. Even the Helicarrier may be compromised. Until we get a full medical report, we can only hope those civilians we brought in from New York weren't in the first infectious stages of the pox before SHIELD secured them in iso. Otherwise, they may have been breathing out the virus."

"Hydra," Fury says. "No _chance_ that the Red Skull has moved on to forgive and forget Thanos knifed him in the back. I hate every one of those bastards, but they pulled their weight against the Devourers on US soil."

"So, Hydra. If Hydra is wiped out? What's Plan B?" Natasha asks.

Fury looks as grim as Thor has ever seen him.

"…I have a plan B, but I want a consultation with Tony, first. Alone."

"Nothing says moral ambiguity like _that_ ," Tony bemoans. He grudgingly gets out of his chair, ready to follow Fury into the privacy of the dark, high-security room behind the bridge.

"Grab a little sleep, everybody. But be ready for me to cut it short," Fury orders. He retreats, a tall dark figure with Tony small and in a blue shirt beside him.

It comes to Thor that the quarters he has been assigned are quarters he shares with Loki. As distant as he wishes to and must hold himself, he will not balk and avoid respite, or so divide them as to refuse to share a room.

He crosses the bridge to Sif, Fandral and Hogun, first. He hugs them each for a long silent moment, sharing sorrow. Loki waits away from them, a wan figure.

Sif touches Thor's shoulder as she passes him by and goes to Loki. Thor does not stare, but in stolen glances sees Sif waiting patiently for Loki's suspicious reserve to wear down. When Loki chooses not to repel her with a cold dismissal or harsh words she puts her arms around him and he his around her, his face hidden in her loosed raven hair.

Thor does not look to them again but gives them their privacy. He would not claim to understand them. They are not bound by blood and they place knives in each other – both physically and metaphorically – but in other ways it seems to Thor that Sif is closer to Loki than she is to him in terms of mutual understanding, although not at heart.

He overlooked Sif's love for him for untold centuries and thinks her now more mysterious than he thought her before.

He stands in a minute of reverent, mourning silence with his brothers in arms, then clapping hands on Fandral and Hogun's shoulders turns to leave. He stops and claps a hand in the same way upon Darcy's shoulder where she lingers drowsy in her chair. She returns the smile he offers. His apprehensions warn him she, too, may have contracted the pox, but he leaves her with a nod to the valor she has displayed and heads for his quarters. Loki has in the meanwhile left with Sif, and honor tells him that is no business of his.

\---

"You look terrible," Sif says, sitting in a far corner of the human's room of worship, two chairs drawn from the rows to give them privacy if they speak softly. There are humans here about their acts of faith. She holds Loki's hands in her own, warming them under her touch.

"I am king of Jötunheimr. I will have you beheaded," Loki warns, she can hear he means it – just a little.

Sif smiles away his threat. He is too miserable and hungry for sympathy to maintain it.

"You were king of Asgard and, if you remember…"

Loki's voice and eyes darken, poison seeping into his words.

"You the traitor that brought my reign to ruin; you the orchestrator of my plunge into the abyss when the shame of my deposition was unbearable, after which I suffered such tortures you could never in all the years allotted you conceive of them."

Sif leaves herself unguarded. The last time they broached their altercation Loki was insane and they shed each other's blood.

"I was," she agrees. "I put my love above my allegiance to the throne, but suspected you mad and a traitor, besides." It all seems so terribly unimportant knowing there is no longer an Asgard as they have known it and that, today, she is Loki's only counsel-giver. "I have never seen Thor with so hard a heart as today."

Loki casts a wary look at the humans who are paying their quiet conversation no heed at all, mostly, Sif thinks, to put off speaking. His desperation to stave off the abandonment he wears so plainly wins him, summoning resentful words.

"It's possible that, in these past days, I whored myself to a devil."

Sif's grimace passes. She forces back the resentment that first grips her. Her immediate urge was to protect Thor from what seems Loki's eternal labor to shame and disinherit him. Her better instincts know that is Loki's labor no longer. She strives consciously, instead, to place herself as Loki, for months so deeply and openly smitten with Thor's attention and acceptance, consigned, now, to the shadows, again.

"I have never known you to be sexually discreet," she says, brow creasing. "Sex might be _all_ that Thor has ever been discreet about."

Loki looks pitiful, readily devouring her sympathies. His pathetic woe is so fine-tuned she risks falling for his sad, sweet eyes and his hand turning over beneath hers to grasp at her wrist.

"I don't even know if it is that which wounded him deepest."

He is marvelously sincere for being so deviously manipulative.

She has never, not even as a child, fallen for it, although Fandral, Hogun, Volstagg and Thor have time and time again.

 _Loki,_ she thinks. _If you could only for a day rest from being Loki._

She believes Thor has brought him close, but for all his brilliance Sif has for two thousand years watched Loki play Loki's most dreadful foe. She remembers thinking, when she was very young, as young people think in their naïve optimism, that she might have an effect upon him. Loki harkened to her sympathies but rebuffed their intended effect.

"He has severed himself from you, yet you found the presence of mind to remain at his side. That is more than I ever expected of you," she says. Best honesty, that bitter medicine, for she cannot satisfy his desire for succor. Still, she strokes his cheek with the hand he has not clasped and offers a grateful smile.

He visibly sours at her refusal to act along with his script, but not so much that he rejects her touch.

"Such high praise will _surely_ carry me through these difficult times."

She presses her lips together, thinly suppressing her mirth at his childlike sulk. She leans in that their foreheads nearly touch, and tucks his hair a little closer behind his ear.

"I am glad, battle-brother. Let us both survive them."

He rolls his eyes as she withdraws. She rises, but keeps their hands clasped and pulls him to his feet. Giving his hand a last squeeze in camaraderie as he glowers at her, she relinquishes her grasp and next holds herself in a bow – he is, after all, a king. Expression all displeasure, he dismisses her with a wave of his fingers.

She goes to find rest and to mourn their dead comrades. To mourn her dead king and queen whose bodies she cannot be there to burn.

\----

Slumber has yet to seek out Thor and carry him to peace when Loki joins him in their cabin. His little brother makes himself unobtrusive, stripping sparingly and taking the lower bunk across the room.

Thor listens to Loki's breathing, eyes shut against the dim emergency lights.

He is frightened of himself.

So easily could he slip his resolve and go at once to Loki; take in his hands that exquisite face so sensitive to every nuance of emotion and absolve him of his disgrace with his kisses.

In Thor's mind he runs his thumb beneath each of Loki's long fingers, spreading his brother's hand wide – leaving an unguarded palm. It's one of many gestures he makes when he's being a little greedy, pushing Loki just so far, forcing his lover to concede trust prematurely.

The greatest bliss he has ever shared with another's body is to have Loki's limber body clinging against his, all that cool flesh sliding across his own while the rolling motion of their hips sets the pace.

Could he only swallow each of those gasps, each mewling cry, every curse and each time Loki speaks his name. He often tries, covering Loki's mouth with his own and feasting on the delicate vibrations which rise from Loki's throat to Loki's lips. 

Being within Loki is not the crowning achievement of the love he makes to him. That is incidental. Consequential. There is awesome pleasure to be had from it, but it would be meaningless did not Loki vocally, physically and insistently profess to adore it. The greatest pleasure is in the pleasing.

It has ceased to matter what impulses move Loki to sometimes beg and sometimes command to take into his body the erections he wins from Thor. By now, Thor freely pays him that and all other doting affection.

So well did they know each other's forms before sharing congress it is less strange than Thor could have conceived for Loki to embrace and part around him. Bouts of sparring offer almost so intimate a medium to enjoy each other's bodies, both in the past and now. Except, in sex, if he serves Loki well, then he will be free to play.

To flirt, paying compliments and courtesies – whispering more and more absurd nonsense about the extent of his passion in his little brother's ear – until Loki, no longer adamant that Thor is having him on, begins to squirm only to be steadied by Thor's touches. To suck on whatever skin he pleases and praise with his tongue what he is wont. Loki becomes flustered when extended time is spent on his belly button, the back of his thigh or in the deep contours of his ear – those places not overtly sexual, where the fact that Thor is drawing more intimacy from him than that attained in the heat of passion works its way to the fore of his mind. 

Loki: He has so long wished so desperately and been so heartsick to be the sole object of another's love that it is torture for him to conceive it as reality. 

Exactly the kind of torturous embarrassment an older sibling is sworn already to provide, now Loki's release – once his hell.

Best, but to be done so carefully and so rarely, is to push Loki's arms above his head and have them stay while he slowly, artfully with all he knows of making love kisses Loki's muscular, masculine but quivering body, compelling Loki to say his name louder and louder until Loki screws up his nose and presses tight his lips and wills his excited breathing to back off its dizzy extreme while Thor grins and preens in victory.

Loki: Thor knows not how to quench his desire, save to spend it, so smitten is he with the mad, volatile beauty of his lover. 

Here Thor lies, alone, tortured with longing, the object of his devotion lying feet away and his to claim.

Fidelity deeper than carnal desires anchors him against the allure of Loki's body and, better than his body, his love and innocent, disbelieving joy.

Acquiescence to Loki's mercurial needs does Loki no good. It will not save him from Thanos, nor will it, as Thor once hoped it would, buttress Loki against his worse desires. By offering freely of himself, Thor only amplifies Loki's capacity to take. 

A fault line in Thor's heart has slipped. In one soul-shaking quake he has awoken to the reality that he and Loki can never share perfect trust or accord.

Thor loves his brother with such violence that, for this, he cannot but resent him.

He is ruined for any other love.

"Are you awake, Loki?"

His brother offers no answer, but Thor knows already that he is for he does not yet breathe like one who slumbers.

"Never doubt that I love you."

He hears Loki shifting away from him, toward the opposite wall and with the rustling of sheets curling in upon himself.

It is his revenge; his promise, too.

**(Then: Asgard)**

"Home for but days," Loki says, voice lilting with implications. Their hair is still damp from their romp with their friends at the waterfalls.

"Home for but days and you sound as if you'll spill misbehavior across our father's kingdom," Thor chastises.

Loki looks askance to him with an arrogant life of his chin.

"Yet you could have me anywhere!" 

"I can think of so many places I don't wish to have you."

"Turn your creativity in the other direction."

"You could take it as a compliment that it is you that attracts me and not performing stunts," Thor taunts, stepping up behind his lover, sliding his hands down over Loki's hips, tucking them against his own with light pressure.

"The mood rapidly flees me," Loki complains, hips countermanding his word as they shift until Thor's flaccid cock is pressed to the depression between his buttocks.

Thor clenches his teeth, for he cannot but grow hard cushioned between those muscle-bound hills.

"Flees you to where?" he asks.

Loki grins, all teeth. Although Thor is behind him he sees it over his brother's shoulder.

"If I said the throne room?"

"Absolutely not, my lover," Thor says.

"Flees me to the stables?" Loki tries.

" _Loki,_ " Thor rebukes.

Loki sniffs affront.

"I didn't know that prank would backfire so consequentially. But if you think your prowess inferior…"

"I am not entering into the competition ."

"How stodgy!"

"If I _don't_ ride you better than a horse…"

Loki wriggles his hips against Thor's stiffing cock, smirk broad.

"I am for once sick to death of soft beds."

"But not of hay."

"No, not of hay."

"How many places you have led me while I wonder if I will regret following these two thousand years."

Loki cackles and drags him behind him. His pale eyes are so mirthful Thor is obedient to his whim, yet at the thought of horses memories come back to him of a raging, pregnant, over-full Loki enslaving any visible victim to cater to her every whine. 

"I refuse to sire anything," Thor warns.

Loki's sour voice drifts back over his shoulder.

"I want to play naughty, not be eleven months fat."

Thor wins the upper hand, taunting:

"You were tremendous. Even for a mare. You were a keg of Dwarven ale."

Loki stops, pivoting around, hand still grasping Thor's, eyes narrowed.

"Doubt not that I can find the tools to _geld_ you in the barn."

Thor's eyebrows shoot up, although the smile at the corners of his lips offers no apology. Better, nonetheless, to cease mocking his vain brother's painful-looking, unnatural past enormity. 

The stable air is rich with the scent of grain, hay, and fresh manure. Their horses are stalled here, some asleep lying down, others, sleeping on their feet, stir enough to take notice of the brothers. Sleipnir, Loki's accidental son, is never stabled. He roams free in the surrounding environs, having far more wit than a steed but still less than an Áss – or, it now seems, Jötunn.

Loki loiters in the aisle between the stalls, walking to his horse who has come forward, tail raised, alert to the possibility of imminent departure. Loki lays his hand on the animal's velvety nose, clucking a soothing 'no' as the stallion nuzzles it, looking for a treat. He looks back over his shoulder at Thor, brows raised.

"Should we visit the tack room?"

Immediately suspicious, Thor tests Loki's intentions.

"For a crop or a saddle?"

His suspicions are confirmed as Loki's eyes slide, lower, to his buttocks. He grabs his little brother as Loki purposefully moves away from the stall and back into the aisle, dragging the slighter man back and into his arms, his powerful embrace like two iron bands.

"I did not come out here for a switching," he warns softly at Loki's ear.

Loki, frowning, squirms his shoulders and sways from foot to foot, deliberately trying out Thor's hold.

"One of the _many_ reasons you deserve one," he mutters when he has found no easy way to slip it.

Thor is much too intimately associated with his younger brother's remarkable capacity for cruelty. His trepidation at the thought itself excites his breathing.

"Never," he says. "Ever." He cuts off Loki's noise of protest: " _Ever._ "

Loki scoffs, defending:

"Maybe _I_ want to be switched."

Lover no longer plotting an escape, Thor turns Loki around in his arms, resting his hands upon his shoulders.

He places a kiss on Loki's sulky pet lips.

"No. You don't."

Loki feigns a second's consideration. His face blanks.

"You're right. I don't." 

He's over his failed scheme, eyes already wandering the barn for points of interest.

He pushes aside Thor's arms, heading in the safer direction of the heavy, hardwood ladder to the hay loft.

Thor warns himself not to forget in the future the past moment's real danger. Fortifying himself with a breath, he follows Loki's promising, leather-clad long legs and hips up the ladder. His face heats at the magnitude of the surge of interest filling his cock with hot blood, a weight growing in his trousers.

Thor reaches the loft and kicks the ladder away to give them ample enough warning of a stable hand, but it is evening and those Æsir's chores done.

"How is it, to eat hay and oats morning and night?" Thor teases, a floor above any gelding tools.

Loki traipses forward, spinning to sink back against a bale of hay, grin proud and evil.

"Delicious beyond imagining if you are feeding a hungry foal that seems at all hours starving while his eight legs kick day and night. You stamp from one foot to another, you pace circles, bucking to punish the wall, cervix insufficiently dilated and healers fawning over you," he says. "And then, although you scarcely believe it, Thor's nephew slides free while you heave for air through your long throat and those fawning healers sponge your withers and back." The softening of Loki's face recasts him as young-looking and breath-catchingly fair, his eyes earnest. Thor's heart plummets with the change; once Loki wore that face so often, sometimes authentic and sometimes to get his way. His warm words are as authentic as Thor has ever heard him: "…and he is beautiful, all legs like a hatchling spider. He is immediately hungry to nurse. You are his mother and, as a horse, drag your tongue over his wet pelt while he suckles. Is that answer enough?" His timeless beauty passes, arrogance and annoyance back in force. "Think you I was a poor mother because that stupid joke went steps too far? Think you I love not my child?" 

"No," Thor swears. He realizes how rarely he thinks of his nephew at all, although over the years he has been dimly conscious of Loki regularly leaving Glaðsheimr to walk in the fields. Thor has taken up the sweet face Loki abandoned, stepping close.

He presses a hand to his brother's strong, flat belly, touch exploring it through Loki's clothes – all abdominal muscle without motherly fat. He remembers Loki in a parade of new-tailored dresses: swollen, loud and miserable, belly rounds with Sleipnir, before the foal grew too big for her Áss body to suffice. It remains difficult to imagine seeding it himself and day by day tracking its distention.

Thor indeed aims not for that.

"A man you are. Only ever a man – and mine," Loki purrs greedily, clutching Thor behind he the neck and pulling him onto him, pressing his lips to Thor's lips and sharing kisses between them.

Thor's boots are ankle deep in hay, Loki's cool fingertips at the nape of neck and woven through the roots of his hair. Loki is pressed against a tightly-rolled hay bale under his greater weight. The scent of dry grass and the musk of livestock that surrounds them hints of Loki's vast, esoteric knowledge of carnality. Loki's hips grinding against Thor's, bulge rolling effortlessly against bulge amid the friction of leather, and the torturously sensual caresses of his tongue upon Thor's speak loudly of it. 

Piece by piece abandoning their clothes together is long familiar to them both; stealing glimpses as flesh is uncovered is, too, in the nostalgic way and powerfully different context of when the growth of their long-to-mature-bodies once provoked both curiosity and prideful competition.

Their surroundings prickle against their bare ankles and feet. Loki has a look of daring on him that Thor has only ever been the subject of when they are joined in combat.

He latches readily to the challenge of physicality. A grinning Thor exuberantly manhandles a Loki who grapples with the intention of losing but the pride to stave off Thor from getting hold of him, smirking as he averts grasping hands. Thor gets his hold, spins Loki around and shoves him onto a deep pile of loose hay, air whuffing from his younger brother's lungs. Tension skirts across Loki's muscles, the beginning and fast suppression of an instinct for immediate, violent retaliation. Thor, pleased, lowers himself to his knees behind Loki and places his hands on his brother's muscle-hard, rounded buttocks.

Parting them with the grip of both hands he delves deep, showing that little pucker of skin that has been the instrument of so much recent pleasure the gratitude of his licks and kisses.

Loki clutches handfuls of hay, strands cracking and snapping as his fists gradually crushes them. With a drawn out moan, Loki shifts his thighs against the soft pile of feed, distancing them from one another. Thor presses his buttocks open wider.

Loki tastes like lake water alongside his usual under-salted flesh. Thor is more interested in pressing his tongue deep in the tight circle of Loki's flesh so which so readily receives him than the exact flavors, however compelling the case his cock makes that he has never seen anything as due praise.

Loki braces himself against the pile beneath him to twist and look back over his shoulder. He sucks on his drying lips, refreshing the shine of saliva upon them. Thor heeds the smug smile on his lover's face and raises his brow. Taken as a challenge to his commitment, he forgets breathing, tongue pressed hard to Loki's anus, whether dragged across its easily-giving, puckered surface or plunging it through the hard circle of muscle, pushing up against it until Loki's sucks in air between clenched teeth and Thor feels his shifting body turn away while his hips squirm from the sensation.

Thor is breathing heavily when he sits up. Loki has dragged the hay beneath him up more than once with grasping hands. Loki's shoulders are tight and rise and fall with his own panting breath, the ass Thor licked for the sake of Loki's pleasure parted in the air.

Thor sits back on his knees, filled with good nature. 

"I watched you, brother," he reminds Loki. "You sequestered the massage oil."

Loki gathers himself, turning over to sit, sighing as he does. His long limbs and his chest are dense with muscle starkly defined in the shadows. Small fibers of hay stick to his pale skin, although they have scarce begun to sweat. Thor thinks they'll still be wearing tonight's debauchery by morning.

"After all the work I've done on your back, I started to fear there'd be none left for me," Loki says. Thor thinks of his brother's hands sliding across his oil-slickened skin, stirring his muscles with the kneading of palm and fingertips and circles drawn by of his long thumbs.

"To the credit of your skillful hands, my back is much relieved."

Loki smiles, self-pleased.

Thor does not mistake Loki's generous mood and emotional flexibility for progress. Their visit home has been pleasant. Loki delighted at displaying their mutual troth before their boon companions. He has enjoyed Thor relying on him to ease muscles pulled grappling a Vanr turned tremendous serpent who crushed the air from him in her coils.

It is enough that Loki be caught in high spirits; Thor marks not how many days he endures a Loki embroiled in spite and resentment.

Loki rises, picking over their abandoned clothing in the night's dark until he lands upon the stoppered glass bottle of oil. Thor hears it opened and Loki walks past him, bottle held close beneath his nose for him to breathe its intoxicating scent of herbs and resins.

Thor climbs to his feet, following his lover in deeper among the bulky hay bales. Their close-packed contents once carpeted Asgard's fields in greens and browns, the alfalfa interspersed amid the stalks attracting bees to its hidden nectar. Thor has worked alongside his countrymen, laying the fields low and raking the dried plant matter for the binding which has always been, for Thor, the appeal of participation. In those fields he shares Asgard's freeholder's daily concerns at a time of plenty and laughter. There is, too, the chance to show off among other young warriors who can accrue and rope the greatest density of feed. The old men and old women chase them off to the barns with their oversized trophies loaded on their backs, saying 'We will not carry these! Those are the work of the young!'

Arrogance has long been Thor's outstanding vice, yet a few day's easy toil in the fields with his unparalleled strength and the royal stables are filled with feed paid for in sweat. Harvest time is the celebratory realm of Volstagg, Hogun and Sif rather than Loki or Fandral. The one won't be seen raking because his bales are never competitive and the other pleads his deft hands are meant for swordplay alone to mask the same failing. Sif tells them each year if they would work together they could bring in feed for their stallions with the rest.

They are both far too conceited to be seen at it.

Ironic to Thor, then, to see Loki attracted to and surrounded by the products of labors he is vocal of being too good to stoop to.

Too good to harvest, but under the right circumstances eager to consume.

Back to Thor, Loki glosses his finger with oil and slides it between own buttocks, carefully watching Thor's expression as his glossy finger draws circles around and dip in and out of his tongue-flattered anus. 

Thor masks no sound, no matter how pathetic , how yearning, or how much his groans beg of Loki.

Loki, tiring of being appreciated from a distance, nickers an inviting whicker so convincingly equine that Thor bursts into embarrassed laughter. One thing to know Loki has unabashedly used his powers in the pursuit of things meant by nature to be impossible. Another to be extended invitation to mount him with horses feet beneath them, whuffling and sometimes waking to feed or stretch.

Salivating, Thor approaches his flirty paramour, scratching at his own broad chest from the dust of their environs while thinking about square, strong, masculine-slender hips. 

"Have I not grown up, darling brother? Think of the face of the boy you knew," Loki taunts, naked, face indeed an increment thicker, hairline an increment higher, body that much more muscular. 

Thor rests a hand on a tall hay bale, beside him. He draws an unsteady breath, still outdone by the sex that oozes raw off Loki's body.

"A man enticed me. No youth. No boy. Lay not these changes out before me, for I have sampled them already beneath both my fingertips and tongue."

Loki's brow riddles up. He drops the re-capped oil into the hay. Thor comes to him and takes him for himself, kissing at the corners of lips which crease the faintest of lines. Stress and terror has matured Loki, but the man thickened during time spent in solitude seduced Thor. No pre-existing sentiment shaped Thor's physical desire.

Loki knows the attention-securing power of his flat hips and taunt buttocks. He awaits Thor with his weight shifted to his right foot. Thor steps behind him, taking up his own cock in his hand, laying it upon Loki's lower back. It fits just-so against the crevasse between Loki's buttocks when he draws his lover close, resting there securely, exactly how he had not time to take pleasure from in their room. Thor breathes the scent off Loki's hair mingled with the rich smell of oil hanging in the air. 

Loki groans as Thor slides his arms around him; as Thor's hands pass down his body, onto his hips, grasping them lightly, confirming with his touch their lean profile. He holds them fast as his hips thrust, his heavy cocked dragged and pushed in the half-embrace of Loki's flesh.

His smile is laced with mirth behind his lover's back.

"What state will dayrise find you in after a night's hard riding?" 

"It depends on the rider. I _should_ have had you bring a crop up. You can put me through all my paces…"

Thor chuckles at the nape of Loki's neck.

Loki slides his hands down his brother's forearms to cover Thor's. A long exhalation, a shiver, and the younger god produces a halting request:

"Hold me… down."

Thor stills, alarm rising in his mind. No hint of his now-familiar madness poisons Loki's words. Thor's imagination cannot supply Loki asking anything of the kind in their bedrooms – in civilized settings. 

He turns Loki around in his arms a second time. He looks into his little brother's eyes. There is no fear: only Loki's excitement. Then, Loki has come to exactly the place where he need assume no responsibility for any way he has himself fucked.

If he were ever to forewarn Thor of these impulses he would not be Loki.

Loki takes Thor's hands in his and walks him backward to where loose hay lies thick across the loft's plank floor. He sinks into it, pulling Thor down with him. His expression is guarded now; his body not. They have been lovers for weeks. It sinks in that tonight is the first night Loki has not plied him with exaggerated enticements. Loki yearns, but without desperation or guile.

Mayhap this is progress after all. Perhaps Loki has long craved a faithful and tolerant lover. How could he have faith he found one in Thor?

Hand flat against Loki's tightly muscled chest, Thor presses him back on to the hay. Loki obeys, elbows sliding from beneath him. Thor rises above him, leaving a firm hand to fix Loki in place. Loki watches him cautiously, but his breathing is even,

Thor reaches to the side takes his lover by one wrist. He draws a deep breath.

"You will tell me – promise me. Tell me if my actions displease you," he demands. He thinks, that, anyway, Loki would. For all his wiles Loki cannot sell himself as paragon of stability and good choices.

His brother cants his head just enough to be a nod.

The power Loki cedes terrifies him. He couldn't discern Loki's sentiments when first they lay together. Loki is like well devised puzzle box, inner secrets guarded with an endless array of tricks.

Even so he moves his hand to grasp his brother's other wrist. He presses both against the hay above his lover's head.

Grunting softly Loki rolls his thighs apart underneath him until the hips Thor's erection rests against could be no wider open.

Thor thinks for a moment to his own pleasure and withdraws enough to push against the oil slick, tongue-prodded opening of Loki's lower body. He inhales as it enfolds him, his cock sinking deep, Loki's well-prepared skin holding it tightly but comfortably. Its whole length is one blissful ache.

Thor's body lurches into motion, his weight a force unto itself. He watches Loki closes, even as his hands tighten around his wrists.

Loki's eyes have widened, whites visible in the dim, lips parted, breath drawn through them. Thor's apprehensions crescendo, but he does not back off, giving Loki his moment to decide if he will react with a tidal wave of fury – this tension the withdrawing of the tidal waters from the shore – or with surrender – tensions the prelude to trust.

Thor has not seen so wild a look on his brother since New York. In this moment he cannot say if Loki will turn upon him, leave him incapacitated to his violent satisfaction and be gone.

Loki's expression collapses into the deepest satisfaction, his eyes lapsing shut. Thor, enraptured, memorizes his lover's every shadowed feature while Loki writhes underneath him, whole body flexing helplessly, and Thor caresses it with answering thrusts. Eyes remaining closed, a relieved smile passes happily over his brother's features before they relax back to panting alone.

Wound up by the complete abandonment of his rigid guard, Loki groans and whimpers enraptured sounds of capitulation, Thor's weight and hold pinning him hard to the hay and loft floor beneath. Thor hip's pump against him, erection sunk deep, Loki's skin running across his whole cock with each drawn-out but powerful thrust.

Thor wishes, although awash in pleasure, that even in a modest way he had been more of a lover and less of a fighter. Then he might know exactly what he was doing for Loki by pounding his hips into his brother's in the hay loft above the royal stables.

At a loss, but joy breaking through his fears, he becomes bolder and freer and does his best whuffing, snorting impression of his own stallion in lather.

Loki's eyes snap open; he breaks down into gleeful laughter, smile engaging his whole face, laugh lines wrinkling the corners of his eyes. Thor, laughing too, half of it disbelief, rolls his eyes, because Loki is probably insane, but he kisses his brother all over his face while Loki giggles stupidly. Thor exults to see his brother at play, recalling to mind so many happy memories, Loki ever the best at making Thor laugh. Loki looks devilish, now, arches his back and switches his hips from one side to another, forcing Thor to rally his energies to still ride him as closely and as hard.

There are orgasms.

"Please lie to me, for my self-regard, that that was more pleasure for you than getting pregnant by a horse," Thor begs between kisses on Loki's skin.

Thor has carefully releases Loki's arms. Loki wraps them loosely about his neck, pleased with it all, Thor still rocking inside him although the pleasure verges on too much, the soft skin of his cock so sensitive from being spent.

"You're so _stupid,_ " Loki complains, being the little brother, biting Thor's lower lip and then letting it slip away through his teeth. 

He is still grinning.

"You are supposed to be an adult," Thor reminds him. 

Innocent eyes meet Thor's accusation.

"I think I'm with foal again," Loki swears.

Thor's face contorts.

"No, you're not." 

Loki continues with utter sincerity.

"My mistake, it was only your cock's the same size." 

He cracks up, all happiness, again, when it catches up to Thor what he has said.

Thor mimics growls and gnaws at Loki's neck while his hands are free with all of his brother's body.

Thor realizes, there in the hay, that no part of Loki will be withheld from his touch.

He lowers his head and sucks against Loki's sternum, one bruise later-to-form at a time, bathing Loki's skin with his tongue between leaving an endless array of love marks. Loki finally must chastise, exasperated and becoming embarrassed "Thor!"

Thor realizes long before they sneak off from the lift, disheveled and covered in hay, that he has won at last what Loki demanded of him from the start: Loki has consented to belong to him completely.


	11. Chapter 11

****

(Now: The Helicarrier)

Johann Schmidt walks with machine precision, polished black jack boots slapping an unbroken rhythm on the Helicarrier's metal floors. His back is straight, shoulders stiff, his black leather coat emblazoned with a tentacled portrait of his own skeletal face. He cares a leather briefcase handcuffed to his wrist beside him. He stops before the conference table set in the Helicarrier's small, secured conference room.

A single SHIELD security officer and a single Hydra honor guard followed him this far at each side, but stopped at the door. Red Skull inclines his head to them and they depart together to await his further movements, wary of one another but professional.

Tony rubs his fingers together, lips twitching into a frown as their guest of unmistakable identity stands, gloved hands folded behind his back, blue eyes scanning the Avengers, SHIELD representatives and Loki waiting, seated, around the table and the four black boxes standing at one end of the room.

"I heard my one brother in blood died violently at the hands of Thanos," Schmidt says tonelessly.

Tony can't tell if it's a veiled jab, condolences, or a little of both.

Tony flashes his patented playboy smile, not sharing Red Skull's gift for understatement.

"Yeah. Send us some flowers. Oh. Right. FedEx is going to be a little slow because you're killing five billion people."

"You look so much like your father," Red Skull says as he pulls out a chair opposite Director Fury and takes his seat at the table. "In the eyes and the ostentatious facial hair. I had hoped one day to work with him. His talent for mass extermination was formidable as, I have heard, is yours. They whisper of you on distant planets: the little human who devised to slaughter an entire Chitauri fleet." The Skull's lipless face smiles. "For this, you have my gratitude. How significantly you enhanced my species-specific reputation."

Without shifting her posture, Natasha warns.

"Tony, don't let him…"

Pain – the phantom sensation of the barbs in his blood – rises behind the arc reactor embedded in Tony's chest. He wants to puke up the part of breakfast he got down somewhere between _Principles of Virology_ , _Fields Virology_ and six academic papers. He holds his hands up, quirking his brow at Schmidt. He glances around the table with an expression that says _What?_

"He's right. He is absolutely right. Uh. You're welcome. Obviously we all did this together; the butterfly effect. You, me, Loki, Thanos, those four talking boxes… Let's all get together maybe also with Ashton Kutcher for judgment free drinks. I, for one, want to see Loki and Ashton Kutcher make out. I think _all_ predominantly heterosexual men would agree with me."

"Tuck your dicks in," Clint warns. Clint has had no competition for taking over the alpha male role from Steve. Tony is way too busy to focus on anything but the 'me' in 'team'.

Tony raises his hand.

"Do you think he even _has_ —"

He grins in the face of Clint's expressionless, silencing look, but he drops his hand and obeys. There's just something about a guy who knows over two hundred ways to cause excruciating pain to the human body without leaving permanent damage that makes controlling himself that much easier.

"We expect Thanos to be searching for or already modifying an aircraft," Agent Hill cuts in. "Loki fooled SHIELD by keeping the Tesseract mobile, but there's every indication Thanos' knowledge of technology makes SHIELD, Stark and Hydra's look like the stone tools of Paleolithic hunter-gathers."

"Hydra has in the past hours determined the location of Thanos," Red Skull vows. "Unlike the rest of you, I have spent seven decades among advanced cultures in multiple stages of development. We triangulated the signature of a basic but extraterrestrial engine outside of Wrightstown, New Jersey. Also, the radiation of the sword of Surtr. Common sense tells me he has stolen from, among other institutions, McGuire Air Force Base. We are prepared to move on our information immediately."

"SHIELD will provide whatever support you need," Director Fury says. "If Hydra can kill Thanos, then I'll take it. I trust you read the files I sent. Our simultaneous objective remains destroying any stealth equipment Thanos has constructed and flushing him into the open."

"I expect the Hulk and Abomination to be in position before the operation begins," Red Skull says pleasantly and succinctly.

Tony doesn't know if he likes this part. The part where they gamble. The part where the dice are spinning in the air above the craps table.

He used to love it. There was a point in his life where he lived for the rush. Now he's sitting in a room full of spies not feigning boredom – which helps his cover – but _knowing_ , his secret tucked safely between him, Schmidt, Fury, Loki and Thor. 

He cares about Clint and Natasha and Bruce. He especially can't stand Rhodey sitting there in the dark. He wants to call Pepper, but that's right out. He doesn't personally know the other three Asgardians in the room but he's sure they're good people.

It's a waiting game. His skin's itching, missing the embrace of Iron Man, his first skin – the flesh no longer enough.

He's ready to get to the action.

"About that," Clint says, looking at Bruce.

Bruce offers a smile, that sweet, a little bit smug smile that Tony now knows means he's actively choosing not to kill them all.

"I made the call to Blonsky. We… Skyped. I think we can be two mature giant, angry military accidents together as long as he's looking forward to fighting Thanos. I'm old news."

"That's almost of touching, when you think about it," Natasha says.

"I have to assume that, as per my recommendation, Hydra brought their deployment strategy on paper, given Thanos has surely by now 'hacked' your primitive human communication devices," Loki asks by way of dry skepticism.

"They have never left my body since they were committed to paper," Red Skull affirms, raising the briefcase indicatively. "We stripped every piece of electronics from our bunker and, as if generals of old, plotted our strategies by candlelight on wooden tables stolen from public parks. Highly romantic, if I specifically exclude the carpenter bees."

Tony folds his arms across his arc reactor.

"Guys, I'm having a medical emergency from the amount of sass being bandied around in here. I'm dangerously dehydrated. I didn't know was possible and also thought sass was _my_ thing."

"Personally, I expected someone at this meeting to have punched you by now. I think the saturation is helping us maintain safe boundaries," Rhodey says, patting him on the shoulder.

Tony makes a face and swats his hand away.

"—not you, too. Traitor."

"With due respect, I am prepared to do my part. Should we speak any longer, we risk wasting valuable time," Thor says, bringing authenticity to the convention.

"Right. You're all dismissed – except you Schmidt."

Red Skull's gaze slides to the rising company.

"Black Widow. Hawkeye. You will be coming with me. Prepare for immediate departure."

"If anybody needs me, I'll be communing with my armor," Tony announces.

Tony studies Loki's raised hand, the twist of his wrist, the concentration on his face as his fingers pass over the touchscreen table and security footage appears in a spread across the screen.

Tony turns his head to watch his double wandering off, hands in its pockets. He sucks his tongue against his teeth as he appraises his own ass.

Completely disgusting situation and layers of spycraft aside, that's really nice equipment for a guy going on fifty.

Fury shuts off the World Security Council's representative black pillars, making a couple of discreet modifications to the back.

"I already had the room stripped by two black operatives, but give this place the works," Fury tells Loki when the congregation is reduced to five.

"One astonishing feat of intellectual prowess and immaculate self-control at a time," Loki mutters, still watching his doubles until they've achieved a safe distance at which to wink out of existence.

"If I thought the sass was bad, the ego per capita in this room is now at critical levels," Tony says, grinning at the other four.

Thor's expression is composed, but those sensitive blue eyes betray volumes of emotion. If Tony took a shot in the dark he'd guess about sixty-percent was valor and the rest a hodgepodge.

"I do not know about you, Stark, but as for myself I feel only humility," the Asgardian says.

"The rest of us will pick up the slack," Tony promises.

Schmidt engages in a long, expressionless study of Tony until through all the self-recrimination Tony gets a little bit actually uncomfortable.

"Director Fury, I hope you know what you're doing making one lynchpin of this operation a sleep-deprived, emotionally volatile civilian. Is the career airman, Col. Rhodes, not trained in the use of the same armor?"

Tony clenches his teeth and refuses to look away from the German's dismissive blue gaze.

"Iron Man comes through for me at crunch time," Fury says as he takes as seat.

Tony drops the tough guy act and gives the ex-SS officer a saucy grin.

"The fact that I am a complete emotional wreck'll grow on you. It grows on everyone. Like a yeast infection. On the subject of emotional catastrophes…"

Better to turn the conversation onto Loki.

The Jötnar's king has the prepossession to offer no response. He's not the nervous, pacing hot mess looking for something to do with his hands Tony first met at Stark Tower.

"I have in every way prepared myself for the part I have been asked to play," Loki says.

Thor's unsettled exhalation and attentiveness says all that needs to be said for Loki to grasp the tenor his brother's unease.

"He won't kill me. He won't trust me enough to kill me," he says. "The question, for Thanos, isn't if it's a trap but how he can turn our trap to his advantage."

"You think he'll try to leverage you," Thor translates.

Tony appreciates the no-world-but-us that rises in Loki and enthralls the grave-looking Thor. He's shared those looks with Pepper. He'd like to have a future and to share a lot more of them.

"I have no apprehensions," Loki says. "If Thanos is to die, I must act in full faith. You will come for me, and you will save me."

Suspicion crawls onto the Red Skull's deformed face.

"They're brothers," he remarks to Tony, inclining his head but not intoning the obvious question.

"Oh. Right. Yes. You Nazis were like _huge_ Norse god fanboys. Yeah. They're totally brothers. When they're not on the skids they bone _constantly_. You would not _believe_."

Schmidt sequesters the knowledge away, saying politely.

"Because I am widely read in mythologies, it's less shocking than you hoped."

Fury is giving Tony the look he gives Tony before he has him kenneled, tapping his pen one time against the table.

"Tony, not as your professional associate but as a friend: Stop flirting with the Nazi psychopath."

Tony protests exactly because Fury has decided to be a friend, plaintive with:

"But he's surprisingly okay with homosexuality."

Red Skull has picked up his briefcase and removes the key to the handcuffs from its location in his coat. There is, additionally, a combination lock and then a sound like a small bullet going off as a device within takes a blood sample. The case opens.

"My one hundred and twenty-one years of life, give or take relativity, have been an endeavor to achieve _absolute consistency_ in my beliefs. The coming, at last, of the Übermenschen, wie ein Phönix, is oblivious to human prejudice. Thanks to me, who we until now called _Homo sapiens_ in all their diversity will be a race prepared to freely travel the stars." 

He removes two neat stacks of paper, plans handwritten and drawn in ink and pencil, and sets them one next to the other upon the table, looking at the four of them with no trace of sentimentality.

"Gentlemen, let us make war."

"Loki," Fury says. "It's time for you to go."

The Jötunn stands. He has averted his eyes from the table since Red Skull lifted the briefcase. There is a moment of physical pause which Tony reads as stately and then Jötunheimr's king departs.

"Secrets and secrets and secrets," Tony says when Loki has had time to depart for another area of the Helicarrier. "As long as nobody's keeping secrets from _me_ I'm unsurprisingly okay with the sense of superiority caballing slathers on top of my sense of superiority. I think, new fact about me, I would be okay with joining a cult." He stops himself, squinting at Red Skull and then shaking his head. "Not _your_ cult." He examines Fury next. "Or you and my dad's cult. Amend that: I will be starting a cult. Thor – I'll need advice. You have like seven cults and they're all pretty cool."

Tony considers this banter a success because it puts a wan smile on Thor's face. Out of all of them Thor is wound up tightest. Tony wins a reprieve from reprimand for that. All the mania he's put on to mask every other feeling shutters away and his concentration snaps into place.

"—alright, Schmidt. Let's see those plans."

**(Now: New Jersey)**

Farmland lies in flat stretches broken by tree lines surrounding Wrightstown, New Jersey. It's a perfect setting for the people of a plague stricken state not to know that their neighbors have been murdered and an ancient alien is building an aircraft within their dead neighbors' barn.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Natasha hasn't seen a Hydra soldier who looks surprised or perturbed by that. She already had a modicum of respect for Callum Harris. As far as it comes to getting the job done, Hydra's men are on the short list of people she'd prefer to infiltrate next to – as long as they're hunting the same target.

Clint's close by. That ratchets up the odds of any op being a successful op. Red Skull wanted them because together they're famous among those in the know as a world class infiltration team. Natasha may not specifically want Hydra 'in the know', but their knowledge didn't stop her from extracting Callum from Australia alongside Clint.

There's a sweet taste to knowing your opponents know and fear your coming and can't do a damn thing about it.

All electricity is powered off. Hydra has weapons with more advanced tech in them than Natasha knew the human race had their hands on – and combatting while developing advanced weapons is SHIELD's imperative – but right now it's all powered down. Red Skull has no intention of giving Thanos a millimeter's advantage.

They were three miles off when they received their deployment orders. She, Clint and the detachment accompanying them have been moving through field and wood at double time, since. 

They don't get the drop on Thanos.

Natasha and Clint move like a deep ocean current: silent and certain in the dark. They take no time destroying his aircraft. They have no more than to lay eyes on it than deploy their full arsenal of explosives.

The Titan himself isn't with it. So, he's both slipped away and surely hidden vital components elsewhere.

That doesn't matter. Natasha would blow Thanos' work with Thanos breathing down her neck.

That's almost what she does.

When Thanos is sent flying two hundred feet she's grateful for Hydra's century of secret innovation. She and Clint are the masters of the human element of stealth but Hydra's guns put the gun SHIELD designed after capturing the Destroyer to shame.

Just one shot and Hydra solders are swarming from the treelines, those wearing ghillie suits popping up in the fields and taking their own shots to vanish again. Some soldiers fire out of nowhere, invisible to the naked eye.

After the past twenty-four hours Natasha would have been shocked if Hydra _didn't_ possess advanced stealth equipment. The problem was, then, the high chance it looked like pre-school toys to Thanos and wouldn't let Red Skull's men get anywhere near destroying the ship.

The Hulk and the Abomination engage the alien in close quarters combat, forcing the Titan on the defensive as their punches abuse his powerful body or, missing, slam craters into the soil. Natasha shudders at the sight of the monsters but doesn't hesitate to join the fray. Clint's a part of this battle with his bow and Natasha with a Hydra-issue rifle shooting she-doesn't-know-what.

The intelligence Thor brought back from Hell was solid. Thanos may not be getting hurt, but he's not the bastion of matchless power he was in New York. He's dodging as many shots as he takes. He's tricking his way out of taking direct blows from Earth's greatest living weapons. He has bolts of raw energy at his command, but he's conserving them for one shot one kills. 

The tide goes out.

Thanos retreats. 

He's full of tricks, and the men Natasha and Clint are with can't track him. The Abomination and Hulk try longer, but the Hulk soon enough inspires the Abomination to join him in wrecking Thanos's remaining property and seeking to root out hidden treasures. The farmhouse is leveled; uprooted trees thrown afield. Natasha stands down. The Red Skull said: "Our priority is to flush Thanos from his lair into the wild."

Whatever other forces are at work, that objective has been met.

\----

Thanos knew that the Red Skull's forces possessed weaponry beyond that of any other population of the human race.

Regardless of the fact, he is disgusted by Hydra's formidable power and the fact that he must completely reassess it before returning to retrieve the components he has secreted in now-occupied territory. As he rests and broods his love stands beside him, quiet and motionless, human in aspect. The humans die so swiftly and in such numbers now that she looks, to his eye, vital as a living creature.

He is stewing in vitriol when he catches an inkling of a familiar power.

He knows it is the mind of Loki Odinson, and that he has miscalculated in not being more concerned that Loki has guarded it from him. He has been scryed upon.

He stands and awaits his recent thrall and present visitor.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" he asks.

Loki has transformed entirely. There is no young mimicry of an Áss here but a being of primal ice, powerful and resentful.

Not powerful enough to do combat with him, Thanos assesses. That is the only thing that matters.

Loki holds something terrifically appealing. 

In his hand is the brilliant, blue, gorgeous Cosmic Cube called the Tesseract.

"I remained upon SHIELD's Helicarrier with my sword brothers and sister in case the planned assault upon you failed and warriors who need not fear the pox had to be called upon for the next assault," the Jötunn says, mind obscured from Thanos's probing.

Thanos rumbles with laughter.

"Here you are. By sight I would say you held a coup, tricking your friends as you tricked them before and tricking the humans because they are human. By intuition I think you are a pretty piece of bait on the most optimistic of fishhooks."

Loki kneels, both his crystalline knees on the ground. Thanos sees in the red stones of his eyes the intensity of his desire, and yet the Titan cannot trust he knows what that desire is.

"My sovereign. I come to you to seek your mercy," the Jötunn pleads. "I thought in my dealings with Mephisto I could keep myself and my lover – my _brother_ , safe. I was a fool to doubt your superior might. Whatever I must do that at least Thor should be spared, I will do it. I am as I have ever been a slave to my desperation."

Thanos stands clear of the Jötunn, searching his translucent body for signs of imminent betrayal. Loki's self-control when he holds a desire clear in mind is impressive on his weakest of days. Worse, even a being with Thanos' powers of perception can gain no traction from reading his microexpressions when his body is a statue.

"Forgive me, my lord," he says. "I have no ambitions left. If anything you know of love, then leave me Thor and all else be damned."

Thanos' heart remains unmoved. His intuition is beyond unmoved, Loki suspect and an object of revulsion.

"You were born a faithless, unctuous little viper, and I broke you of it," the Titan says. "I burned your will to scheme and plot from me from your traitorous mockery of a heart and ripped the lies you planned to feed me from your throat. I tore apart the halves of your mind and dug my fingers in until my nails cut wounds and poisoned those wounds with the dark energy of the dead Shaper so they would never heal. I left nothing of you but sadistic madness and your fear of my retribution. Now you come before me, your mind closed to me. Not unthinkable for you to achieve, yet for your part a promise that you will at the first opportunity betray me."

Loki rises, dirt on his knees but expression changeless.

"If you don't _want_ the Tesseract…"

Thanos smiles.

"I'll have what is mine: the Tesseract, and you."

All that is ice of the Jötunn explodes, a glittering shower of frozen water collapsing to the ground. The Tesseract and the elemental's core, a chunk of the stuff of creation, land with two crunches in the pile of chips and shards.

"Far more convenient to keep him like this," Thanos says, laughing. "And inside him the Cask of Ancient Winters." He takes up the Tesseract in one hand and the Jötunn in the other. Giving a flirtatious look to his silent love, he tosses the freezing ball in the air, catching it absently. He turns a skeptical look to the glassy, frigid marble in his palm. "My single regret: I always liked him best when he was screaming."

The Titan turns his gaze to the prize clutched in his other hand. Were his muscles not as hard as if they were cut from diamond, he would tremble. The moment overwhelms him. He stands in awe, dazzled by his own ambition.

He looks up to Death. She smiles, her black eyes soft as he has never before seen them. He returns her loving gaze, arrogance in this moment quenched.

"I have prepared no words. None would do this day justice. All my life I have longed to be yours and take you as mine – queen and king." The Tesseract illuminates his upper body in blue. He needs no tools for the task before him. No tool is peer to his genius – modified beyond genius – mind.

Thanos wastes not an instant more. A stream of red light shines from his eyes, focused upon the heart of the Tesseract with laser precision. He breaches its outer skin. It knows no way to resist him. His assault is thought and the Tesseract ever-receptive to astral energies.

His mind expands a thousand, a _million_ fold. Whatever he wishes to see of the universe is revealed to him with but a whim. The ionized gasses of nebula's he sees across all spectrums at once. He looks past the event horizons of black holes, laying preternatural sight upon the unparalleled brightness of the accretion disks inside. The nuanced physics which patterns reality are revealed in full, all at once. The Tesseract contains a city's worth of minds, catalogs of every memory of whatever has contacted its power. Souls are snared within its universe-worth of dark energy, suspended at their moments of death, ignored when they were caught by the unwitting, slumbering cube.

Later, Thanos will decide what to do with them.

He perceives each cell of his physical body: each long, twisted strand of DNA floating in his nuclei and the lipid film over each organelle. He uses his own biorhythms to pace his transformation. The Tesseract is young, her will disorganized, confused as to her surroundings and her goals. She buckles beneath Thanos' honed purpose. Blue energy cascades over Thanos' skin as the Titan replaces one cell at a time with a perfect, dark energy rich model. In a breath's time his corporeal body which has served him so perfectly for so long is absorbed into the Tesseract as its double appears.

His gaze falls upon Loki, still in his palm. The orb sinks into the infinity of his body. His joy is punctuated by a second's caution.

_"Loki," Fury says. "It's time for you to go."_

Thanos casts his gaze to the Helicarrier, discovering that SHIELD agents there are in fact panicking over the disappearance of the Tesseract.

He dislikes Loki's ignorance of the full plan as dearly as he dislikes the scheming he now sees Loki and Mephisto had intimately engaged in. His mind is eased knowing a mere touch will consume or forever disperse Mephisto.

With that happy thought, he turns his full attention to Death. He can see his beloved, now. Understands, after so long her companion, the torturous distorted through which she fits into the universe of the living. Blindness stripped from his eyes, he is in the clutches of pain.

Oh, how little pain it is compared to all his love has endured.

"Had I ever known," the Titan whispers.

Death's peaceful smile remains until the human skin has peeled away, first swollen shining and post-mortem tight, then blackened, rotted and sloughed off her skull like heavy, wet paper.

Her voice is in his mind is all he ever imagined: throatless – as hollow as the emptiness of deep space.

"When I am with you, you silence the strife within me."

For the first time, Thanos may remove his golden gloves and take his mistress' skeletal hand in his own. Existing on every level of reality, her cold, bony fingertips rest upon his palm. He lifts her hand, kissing its knuckle bones. He folds his other hand atop it and holds it reverently, gaze lost in the dark caverns of her empty eye sockets.

"I don't understand how it could be me who brings _you_ peace. You transformed me from an enraged, bullied boy become revenge to a man who knows patience and stillness."

She takes a step closer to him, her form so slight. She bows her cowled head, reflecting inwards upon her whole vast being. Thanos sees that indeed she is still. He brings her hand to his chest. Her fleshless fingers at rest against his armor. For this moment, she reaps no longer.

Mortality does not disappear, but across the cosmos unbound souls cease, in her stillness, to be vanished.

She yet dwells in thought, but tilts her eyeless sockets up to him. Her ebon robes hang close to her fleshless form, the rippling fabric enshrouding her in total darkness. Still human in outline, her teeth are white enamel rooted in unevenly colored continents of fused cranial bones.

"Most who welcome Death pray for my favor: for the destruction of their enemies… for me to transport them to a country beyond their miserable lives. You have, in all this time, looked upon me only as beautiful. Even now, knowing all you do."

The Titan bends down, and Death in answer rises on her toes. He kisses not the teeth and jaw of her, anatomy arbitrary now that none offers suppler flesh, but lays his lips upon her forehead, instead.

Thanos has in his time plotted the clashes of two or more hopeless armies and guided them to mutual slaughter. He has devastated planets, leading eco-systems into collapse. He has murdered, so many little personal deaths, but plotted more assassinations than bloodied his own hands. His work as a great mover in the galaxy would be impossible if lesser creatures grasped its scope. Better to provoke xenocide from the shadows. Better to send violent agents to far worlds to wreck their own insane havoc without the name Thanos more than whispered.

All these things he has done for Death, to but for moments slake her eternal, consuming hunger. 

No one kiss will grant her reprieve. Already her narrowed attention strains. As he rises from her he looks on in compassion as, although she is, too, here with him, her tremendous being is once again set into motion.

"It is only the first hour," Thanos muses, turning his thoughts toward the future. "The power I am now possessed of I will in time learn to fully command."

Thanos is reluctant to part his attention from the creature which consumes his every thought – a woman who has only grown lovelier to him in these last minutes.

However, he must finally address that he has company. He turns his attention to the assembled humans, metahumans and the Asgardian who have surrounded him.

They moved when he made no secret of producing energy from the Tesseract. He smiles to himself, seeing their caution. Their _fear_. It is impossible their instruments ever read such a mighty discharge of dark energy upon Earth, but here he stands as if unchanged. He easily comprehends their bewilderment.

Guns are drawn, and one bow. The red and gold cyborg hovers above. The two aberrations are barely containing their fury. The Áss among them all looks angrier than even those.

They must know all their efforts will be in vain, but they are defiant little things.

Storm clouds have gathered above them. Thunder rumbles as lightning races jagged across the sky. Precipitation falls.

Thanos supposes the fearsome-looking Thor Odinson must wonder where his brother is, but feels no compulsion to tell him.

"As usual, it falls to me to point out the obvious," Iron Man in his brightly colored suit says, not to all but to Thanos. "It's _really_ weird to see a guy making out with the air. You should probably actually get that looked at."

Thor, just beside him as the rain covers the area in white noise, is more to the point.

" _Where is the Tesseract?_ " Thor roars.

"That's not what you mean. You mean 'What have you done with Loki?'" Thanos says. As well as Thanos knows Loki and the extremes to which he can vacillate between loving and admiring and utterly despising his older brother, the little god's anger is endearing. "Nothing. Yet."

The Red Skull, oblivious to the rain, holds in his hand a device not of Earthen design but of a culture of the Triangulum Galaxy familiar to Thanos.

"My readings tell me Thanos 'Rex' _is_ now the Tesseract."

"I'm getting that, too," Iron Man says. 

Neither of them sound perturbed.

There is something afoot among them. Loki's memories show him the Red Skull, Thor and Iron Man together with Director Nick Fury. The Titan takes a cautious moment attempting to discern what their ploy could be based upon all the information at his command.

In that moment, the Áss, Thor, stoically raises his uru hammer toward the sky. Most remarkable to Thanos is his sudden and complete dispassion. His eyes hold their focus upon Thanos as electricity snakes from the sky, ground shaken from the sonic shockwave born of disrupted and suddenly heated air.

Both Hydra and SHIELD agents instinctively back away, surprise genuine.

The god's lightning is unleashed upon the mere human suited in red and gold in the sky.

Despite his incredible prowess and vast cosmic knowledge, Thanos is lost as to what they could possibly be doing. In his arrogance, his curiosity demands to know what power they believe could be brought against him.

His intellect wrapped up in uncovering it, fearless in his newfound godhood, his curiosity lasts until the white ray of light exploding from Iron Man's chest impacts the pure dark energy masquerading as his body.

Thanos's observations end.


	12. Chapter 12

**(Now: Elsewhere) ******

His surroundings are fantastic.

Thor does not heed them.

He rushes, leaving all else aside, to his brother, all ice, who lies in a foetal position, limbs curled against his body, hands clutching himself. Falling to his knees at Loki's side Thor sees Loki has grown into himself. What at first looked like body parts resembles instead exquisite, solid, carved ice. Thor battles back the horror overtaking him.

Knowing not what is wrong, only that Loki is here and upon Thanos's word there is no reason to assume he is dead, Thor lays his hand upon him, in hope the warmth will register. Loki does not respond. Thor takes a deep breath and leans over him, breathing against the smooth depression behind Loki's jaw that has a resemblance to an ear.

Loki does not wake. Thor's brow furrows. Loki's eyes, as it were, are open, two red crystals with small, hard black spots, frozen through like the rest of him. 

Thor's attention is distracted by an airy figure that, although it gives the impression of walking, is feet from the muddy ground and forms and reforms its body and limbs from ethereal mist and shifting light. The apparition drifts to float beside him.

"I wish him never wake," it says, voice like the ripple of water across a pond.

Thor cringes, the emotions that wrack him both of yearning and forlorn. His voice is weak, choked with sorrow.

"Please." He looks up to the spirit. Its face is much like that of the galaxies' hominoids, although there are no eyes – no nose, or lips, or ears. "I know you for what you are: What we have called the Tesseract. He has wronged you, and he is more flawed than most – yet he is my brother. There is no one more beautiful to me."

The Tesseract flickers in the air.

Thor sees the others, all those in what must have been the radius of the blast – some of them innocent, unwitting civilians from far away – stand in the exaggerated scenery. Here there is mud, there a third of a human church, salient features intact but only those. There are trees, not a forest's worth but a considerable number. Birds call from their branches. A huge rusted vat squats in the open with the symbol of Hydra on it. He spies rabbits and, briefly, a fox, moving through grass. Beyond their phantasmagoric s surroundings an incredible darkness which strikes inexplicable fear in Thor encroaches into the shadows of the material.

Some figures walk their surreal lifeboat, exploring its dreamlike details. Thanos towers at the center of it all. Beside him stands a woman enrobed in black, only bones, perfectly still, her hands folded over her lap.

No one sees either Thor or Loki, save that skeleton.

If it can be thought to look, then it looks directly upon them.

Thor looks down upon his hideously frozen lover. He knows not what to plea.

"The first time I met you, you wished for nothing but to bring myself and your brother home to the peace and sanctuary of Asgard. You had no selfish thoughts, but I had never met with such sadness. You are sadder today than in our past." The focus of the Tesseract's featureless face is alike to the skeleton's, impossible to determine. 

"Among all these yearning beings, your heart calls the loudest. You dwarf even the cravings of my sister, Death. You called this creature to you, and my attention to you both. There is no heart like yours… But Thor – please let me call you Thor; everyone but you sees a monster. Loki, too, sees the monster. Come away from him."

Rage flares in Thor. He turns flashing eyes on the half-formed being. It recoils in the air for only a moment. It relaxes straight away, drifting closer again.

"I _will_ rescue my brother. Of this there is no question."

The Tesseract lands gingerly in the mud. He sees Baldur slowly forming in its features. On the verge of leaping to his feet and roaring the breadth of his insult, the touch of his mind to its grants him a fragmented understanding that it searches to grasp the means to be both full of hope for the future and brave enough to face the agony of disappointment.

"Allow me to fix him. I and the Shaper accept responsibility for his rent mind. He need not be the Jötunn he hates. I can strengthen, too, his primitive essence into what you would call a soul…"

Thor hears wonder in the Tesseract's voice. These are possibilities are realized at the same time they are spoken.

"…I cannot choose those things in Loki's absence," Thor says. "Awaken my brother."

The Tesseract, with Baldur's face, draws up, wearing a familiar look of determination in spite of apprehension.

Loki's limbs are freed. With the cracking and popping of ice he sits up. Disoriented he looks between Thor and the doppelganger of their brother.

Thor does not know what Loki last remembers but can be sure it was horrible if it should confine him to such a state.

The Tesseract kneels in front of Loki, blinking eyelashes with a phantom cast of blonde.

When they match eyes, Loki and the awakened god go still, sharing communion unknown to Thor. Thor cannot find it in himself to resent the Tesseract as it takes on more and more of Baldur's look. The thought it means to be seditious or manipulative comes and passes.

Thor only hopes his sense of reassurance is not one enforced upon him by the god.

Loki's carnelian eyes snap to Thor.

"How can I not?" 

Thor's imagination is unable to paint a realistic portrait of what so many changes so suddenly would mean for the rest of Loki's existence.

"You can wait, Loki, and think upon it – if only minutes," he urges, still grappling to plot the consequences in his mind. Although Loki's expressions may be written in the growth and crumbling of little details in the ice Thor recognizes well the look of disgust Loki wears. His brother wears it for a wide variety of occasions. "I would despair if I lost the power to recognize my brother because of a groggy concession made to an entity – without offense – new to his power."

Loki remains unmoving but for the flicker of his lidless eyes in their crystalline sockets. Thor prays to nameless providence that he has not destroyed Loki's chance at future joy.

The Tesseract, untouched by the mud, rises, looking closely at Thor. It turns away, looking toward the others.

"How much there is to be done," it says.

They come into line with the plane of perception shared by the rest. 

The Tesseract transverses the space between himself and the others not in steps but in sudden relocations, one disjointed flickering at a time.

Loki's icy hand clutches Thor's bicep. Thor gives him all his attention, but he can no longer discern the nuances of Loki's emotion.

"If you have undone our single chance to repair me…"

Thor struggles with the rage and resentment roughening his brother's voice, this things too heavy to think upon. He rallies to voice his sentiments:

"You have been done so many injuries for which there will be no other medic. I would not withhold from you healing stones had equally grievous harm been wrecked upon your body. I want your happiness."

"You fear were I healthy I would no longer love you as I love you."

The Jötunn stands, stalking after the Tesseract, leaving his words to carve their wounds. Thor presses a hand to his forehead, waiting for the pain and self-cursing to leave him before he rises from the mud, carrying it with him on his armor.

Loki summons endless venom when riled; Thor's memory vouches for the antiquity of that dark facet of his brother's charm.

The Tesseract floats before a wary Thanos, showing no fear of him.

"Forget your ambitions," it says, psychic communication filling space without diminishing with distance. "I learned your trick."

Thanos maintains his lordly presence despite his neutering.

"Know all my 'tricks'. My ambitions remain the same."

The Tesseract shakes it head, shaking off the face of Baldur simultaneously, wisps of ether surrounding it.

"You can never be one of us."

Tony Stark raises his voice from the group that has gravitated to encircle these actors.

"Hey. Excuse me. Let me just butt in here. Are we dead? I'm only asking because I think maybe that's Death."

He points indicatively to the robed figure in their midst.

Although his armor has vanished, Stark's chest blazes with a white light not shaded by the fabric of his shirt – shining through the woven fiber and brighter through every tiny space in it.

"We are beyond my purview," the skeletal figure says, its voice touched by the feminine. "I, you, and she we call Tesseract speak behind the back of Eternity. Such novel, even if unnecessary, secrecy."

"I would personally like to know what the hell just happened out there," Barton says, bow in his grip.

"You more than most understand the close restriction of intelligence in black operations," Red Skull says to him. "Director Fury came by the knowledge that the arc reactor, most so the latest version within Iron Man's breast, is in fact a fledgling, failed but recognizable and admirable precursor of a new Cosmic Cube."

"You were down there when Loki's scepter breached the Tesseract," Tony says. "Thor and me did a little breaching of our own. Probably everything in a two mile radius disappeared off the face of the planet. Looks like everything alive and a couple things handpicked from people's heads aggregated right here."

"I'm still not completely clear if we're dead or not," Natasha points out.

Tony shrugs.

"Hey, me either."

"You have no appreciation for what death means," Thanos says. He is not haughty; he does not laugh. He is serious and looks, to Thor, deep in thought.

"I could go for us cutting out anything that sounds like mysticism and getting all the answers in plain English," a haggard, reduced Blonksy growls.

"We're in a parallel dimension," a kid pipes up. He's one of the locals, dressed in worn denim. His t-shirt says Sacred Soul across the front with an eagle, wings spread, wrapped up with snakes and other equally formidable decorations in orange. He grows embarrassed when all attention turns to him, mustering a smile. "Sorry, I know I'm not an Avenger. I've just been reading all this theoretical physics and, um, Yale has all those introductory courses online, now…"

"Nobody here started their careers planning to be an Avenger," Banner points out with a reassuring smile. "We made that job up a couple years ago."

"I have your answer," the skeleton says. "The Cosmic Cube that birthed this universe, many of you I think will understand if I speak of it as the Seed of Yggdrasil – that seed, young and vigorous, grew wild. I was once like the Tesseract, like the Shaper, like that Seed. It expanded at the speed of its each revelation and collided violently against me. It breached me as Stark breached the Tesseract. In my shock I was rent of sense and Yggdrasil, too. Slowly we awoke, brother and sister, our fates conjoined, but He, Eternity, flourishing with life. Throughout him galaxies formed; within him souls bloomed. I had been emptied. All that had ever flourished within me was ripped from inside me. I knew hunger. Nothing but hunger." Her voice grows strained. "I still, after thirteen billion years, know nothing else but my hunger!"

Outrage overcomes Thor. He thinks of Steve, forever trapped within Mephisto and being so cruelly digested, and bellows:

"In your hunger you devour billions upon billions of willful beings. Seek no sympathy from us!"

"You judge me with mortal eyes. My little galaxies are my treasures. Those beings which people them I have made eternal. And yet… I no longer remember what I lost. No more do I know than that I eternally starve for all that was taken from me."

Stark tenses, and his eyes narrow.

"Inquiry: You made it pretty clear you were left with nothing – no physical matter. Where are you getting little galaxies?"

Thanos takes on a look of pride. Thor's outrage has subsided on barely and easily rebounds, knowing whatever the Titan is to say he will hate it.

"Humans call it 'dark flow'. It is the river of galaxies feeding into the ocean that is Death. Your scientists name her body the Great Attractor."

Soft spoken as always, Banner looks over his glasses at Death.

"I would, personally, like to sign some kind of consent form before the Milky Way actually goes into another reality." He rests his hands on his hips. His quiet confidence eloquently understates his power. "I understand that this all happened a long time ago. Things that ruin you _forever_ , they happen and the rest of your life is… torture. Not a lot of people know that better than me, but I, personally – and I'm not trying for Tony's sarcasm – I'm just for democratic voting. I'm at least for constitutional republics." He pushes his hand through his greying curls, hand resting at the crown of his head, studying Death closely. "When the pain starts you don't care about anybody else. Innocent people in your way get killed. Later, you have to rethink that."

The Tesseract turns in a circle, attending each of the beings she hosts, indiscriminate between civilians, soldiers and those people caught in between.

"There is no one. There isn't a single person here who hasn't made themselves a criminal. Worse than this: Murder is a crime you claim to hate, but so many have murdered." She flickers from one direction to face the other, the light within her growing in intensity as she faces Red Skull. "You _tortured_ me! You shredded me into pieces and each was piece returned to me with the memories of a human who died in terror!" It is Loki she faces next, changing directions in instants. "And you— _You_ tore me open. You eviscerated me with the Shaper to cross space! You placed my consciousness within others and willed atrocities. You seeded mayhem in the Avengers' thoughts hoping that the Hulk would kill them all." Her gaseous form shudders as if buffeted by winds as she faces a third direction. "Thanos… I see your whole history, and know you."

Thor can look into his own heart and know despite the horrors this nascent god has been witness to and despite his own hurt and the grudge against his brother festering inside him, he ultimately cares nothing for what Loki has done: only that Loki survives this. It is not the first time – nor does it in any way reflect admirably upon him.

He takes careful account of himself before going to the young entity floating so near her torturers, torn, he suspects, about which way to take retribution. She attends him, drifting a little closer, her animation a sign, he thinks, of curiosity. He offers his hands out to her and, ethereal airs rippling with the novelty, she takes them.

Thor senses her youthful trepidation. Although she wears Baldur's form no more, he remembers that boy and the years spent tutoring him.

"We have shown you very little but ugliness. Would there were only a world with a better breed of soul for you to be born into. Even now, my own selfishness moves me, but allow that not to diminish my genuine good will when I tell you you are no longer bound to respond to those who have wronged you. You are alive, and awake, and you have the power inside you to choose whatever future should suit without risking the snares of a past full of regrets."

"I have already allowed my first regret to form inside me. The first wish of one who had not before known how to wish was a wish you denied. How horrible this world." 

"It is not the only world."

"If I escape, and I grow, I could destroy another of my kind as the Seed of Yggdrasil brought destruction to my sister." The Tesseract, with eyes for none but him, tightens her grasp. He knows her question before she speaks it. "Thor: Do you think it's a meaningful life, when the best you can allow yourself to do is choose your own prison?"

He swallows, forbidding himself to lie.

"I believe that if the choice you make is to pick a prison, you can still be happy."

The Tesseract's blue grow brightens. She has no face, but smiles in her way.

"Then… I know what to do, now. Will you let me call you my big brother, too?"

"That would be my honor."

Hands resting in Thor's she turns to Death, illumination undiminished.

"–sister, I wish to go with you. I will irrevocably separate you from Eternity, and make vital all your domain. After I do, I think you'll even be able to rest. And… I could not stand to part you from a lover who has for so long shown you devotion, although he has left this world in ruin. We three will in our own ways live forever – I hope we'll even be happy." Now her conscious acknolwedgement flickers across the rest. "For you rest, I will put you back in place."

Stark's expression says he's walking himself through the consequences, his chest still shining like a star.

"That is… Way to go, Thor."

"Berate me at a later time."

"It's coming, Dwayne Johnson."

It isn't coming now. Everyone – human, animal, and plant – has vanished and with them most semblance of three dimensional space.

Thor is left with only Loki, Thanos, Death and their hostess.

One pair of lovers has no concern for anything but each other. They stand in an embrace, neither speaking. Thanos, head bowed, has shut his eyes, but upon his lips is the smile of a man rejoicing. Death rests against him, skeletal features inscrutable. Her hand strokes his muscular side, movement slow.

Thor stands in envy of them. They exhibit no carnal longing, yet never has he seen two beings so at peace. Thor hates Thanos as bitterly as he is capable of hatred. At this very moment he would, if he could, destroy the Titan with his own hands. Despite the intensity with which he despises Thanos, his envy stands out in contrast.

Finally he must look away. He tries to clear his mind – to think only of Loki.

"You've been quiet, except for thinking," the Tesseract says to Loki.

Jötunheimr's king is still seething in self-loathing as he has seethed since first understanding all the Tesseract offered.

"I hate all of this," he says.

Thor approaches them with trepidation, halting when Loki's accusing eyes demand he come no closer.

"I am no more than your yoke. A jealous draugr that haunts your steps. The adder latched to your throat, poisoning your veins."

It is not a time for gentle words of reassurance. Thor has none for Loki. He has opinions, all the same.

"Loki. I have loved you two millennia. You have always been Jötunn. You have _always_ enjoyed cruel jokes and I reasonably suspect been a sadist. You have always been vain and obsessed with the maintenance of your pride, even when you were no more than a babe. You have forever adventured to sexual extremes I will never contort my mind around." He looks in himself for strength and finds it – if his brother gave him one more trial to endure, it would not be the worst foisted upon him. "I do not deny were you to have yourself purged bland I would lose you, yet if that is the path to your future joy I will shepherd that stranger."

Loki's voice sharpens, more foreboding still:

"Mother told me the Tesseract could change Fate. She foresaw ours as so horrible she dared not imagine it seen through."

"Know we not if it has changed already? You chose to follow me from Hell, to stand beside me in this. You chose to place all of your faith in me. You took the Tesseract in hand and went to your enslaver. Is a Fate in which you surrendered all your trust to me not otherwise impossible to secure?"

Loki cringes in pain. He looks toward Thanos without fear, in only accusation and hatred. He studies the Skrull and Titan half-breed in angry silence.

It is with full certainty that he returns his gaze to Thor, speaking breathlessly as if he barely dares believe his words and seeking Thor's confirmation.

"Were it not for all that he did to my mind, it would have both been impossible to reject his influence so utterly and equally impossible to give no quarter to Mephisto."

Thor nods, accepting his evaluation. 

Loki hesitates. His gaze unfocuses. His anger fades to sadness. He looks to the Tesseract, voice quiet and humble:

"…I should like a soul. I do not wish to return to Aurgelmir when my body perishes, but instead persist on."

Despite their rejection of so many of her offers, the Tesseract illuminates happily. As he recognizes it, Thor feels inside himself her hope that if offered the eternity with Loki, should he choose it, he might be even a little less sad. 

"I'm going to amplify those energies you already possess," the Tesseract says to Loki. "Do not fear yourself unworthy. My feelings tell me over time you could transform them into an equally cohesive whole. It's only… It would be awful if you died before you could."

The god's fingers grow clearly articulated. She reaches into Loki's chest, pulling out what looks to Thor a hard ball of ice. She holds it in her cupped hands. She opens her spectral mouth, light pouring out of it like a stream of water, its form definite but like fluid twisting upon itself. The orb in her hands reciprocates with a glow of its own building inside it, as if she is blowing upon a coal and the heat inside it rises. The orb's inner light breaks through its hard surface in rays. When the Tesseract shuts her mouth, there isn't an orb at all – she holds a formless light cupped in her hands.

She leans forward and politely returns it to Loki's crystalline form. Light scatters through his facets. It disappears when it has been set in the center of his breast. She withdraws her hands.

Loki purses his lips, taking account of what just happened. He lifts one brow at the half-formless Tesseract.

"I feel no different."

The Tesseract shakes her ephemeral head.

"There is no reason you would. I have no more than amplified what existed already. All the differences, the life and memories, that separate you from all else called Arugelmir. Now, you are Loki."

"I thank you for your generosity," Thor says. The visible depth of his brother's brooding tells him Loki will stay silent.

"I envy Eternity, that he should host a soul such as yours," the Tesseract says. "We will never meet again."

—there is no more.

\----

Loki discovers himself and Thor standing in an environment recognizable by its plant life as the area he left from, although their specific location is foreign.

Without knowing all that transpired between the Tesseract and Thor, the knowledge that he was offered her generous boons not at all on his own merits but upon Thor's sits heavy with him. He cannot deny the inequality between Thor's purity and his own decrepitude. It no longer resembles the imbalance of their youth. For each increment by which Thor made himself a better man Loki matched it with depravity.

Loki looks over their surroundings, then, subdued, looks cautiously at Thor.

"It sounded to me as if you still have no intention to part from me."

Thor does not deny it. He gives no word and makes no gesture of affirmation but Loki knows what the case is. Pain etches itself upon Thor's countenance.

"I can never place full faith in you. At any time you could become entangled in your fears, your own cleverness, your desire to inflict torment upon others and my values matter nothing to you if my life is endangered."

"Yes."

Thor adjusts his grasp on Mjölnir, no threat; mayhap he has only been long holding it. His brow furrows. Loki aches with relief to read emotions at play, if in conflict, in his brother's eyes. 

"You may fight me, even unexpectedly, and gravely endanger our friends and associates."

"…promising otherwise could someday make me a liar."

This time, Thor points his rune-etched hammer at Loki. He wears no compromise, nor any pity.

"Attend closely that I am exorcised of my hesitation to thwart your works. I am prepared to arrest you outside our bedchamber. _That_ will be no cause of pleasure. In that, along with my continued faithfulness, have no doubt."

Loki draws a trembling breath, moved by his urge to respond with anger when threatened. That urge he suppresses, easier when he is so exhausted. Thor lowers Mjölnir. Loki knows by his familiar body language that Thor has yet to finish speaking. He waits to be sentenced, knowing not what his sentence will be.

"Wed me," Thor says. "Mutual rule is amenable to Jötunheimr's long term prospects, and in my heart I hope to Loki's. I have pledged already to make Býleistr my kinsman."

Loki would in no Realm or lifetime ask for an alternative. He sees plainly upon his emotion-rife brother that neither would Thor.

"So you did, and we will wed."

Silence descends on them: a pair of tall figures united in sorrow. Loki wishes he could, in this moment, rejoice. He is strengthened knowing he will be unburdened of sole rulership of a people he cannot gaze upon without sting of prejudice. Thor, embodiment of fidelity that he has become, will be with him – beside him – by all estimations for the unknown millennia of their long lives.

Thor, the more romantic, has proposed, Loki become fiancée, and yet each brother holds his distance.

"I must tell our Jötnar of this news and organize them for their return across Bifrost while you retrieve Gungnir," Loki says.

Thor could be many times less pleased with him. Thor _could _but Loki thinks Thor does _not_ despise him. Thor could marry him only to have control over Jötunheimr and the earliest of possible warnings of the threat Loki might pose. Duplicity is not Thor's strong suit. None of these things are the case.__

__Regardless, Loki remains unhappy. He is wounded that upon these tidings there is no offer of embrace._ _

__He is aware again his icy Jötunn form disgusts Thor as it and the other Jötunn disgust Loki himself._ _

__He cleaves to the fact that he will rejoin with his brother in physical ways in the coming months, albeit the time be unknown. It is a paltry consolation when their discourse says to him that for Thor, fatigued as he is, kisses would be a trial._ _

__"Loki," Thor interrupts. "Turn your thoughts outward."_ _

__Loki grows alert beneath the weight of his misery._ _

__Thor, expression solemn but blue eyes worried, steps forward, reaching out to place his hand on Loki's bare, frozen shoulder where his thumb strokes what would be tense muscles were Loki flesh. Loki crushes thoughts of his own unnaturalness when he meets his love in a kiss, however ingrained his knowledge that he is not worth kissing. His mouth is hard. Changes in its shape are partly-fluid and partly shedding unnecessary ice while Thor's hot mouth provokes a thin sheen of water by virtue of which their mouths to slide freely against each other's._ _

__When they have kissed long enough that the interaction of Thor's mouth and Loki's Jötunn body is no longer awkward Thor retreats. The obvious stirrings of Thor's sexual interest visibly conflict with his remaining revulsion._ _

__"In time," Thor promises. "My body calls for rest and my mind for contemplation of the tasks lying ahead of us that will so much from us demand. Gungnir we will have soon."_ _

__They leave each other. Thor takes flight and Loki relies on the power ever flowing from the Cask within him to translocate himself to Býleistr and Þjazi._ _

__He calls the Jötnar to assembly. Their war band shines under the sunlight despite the shadow of ash, thousands of gleaming bodies that bring the surrounding temperature low._ _

__"Bifrost soon opens to us. I choose we go to Asgard to aid in the burial of that devastated realm's dead. I have pledged my troth to wed its new king. For every two-hundred days in Asgard, two-hundred will we spend in Jötunheimr. Thor and Býleistr have pledged to swear brotherhood, that even if I am absent our realms will remain at peace. There is much work to do in Jötunheimr and I shall be beside you in those undertakings. We remain in Asgard only as long as the funeral pyres burn."_ _

__The Jötunn take the news with a prism-wide spectrum of interest and displeasure._ _

__Loki grins, now all wickedness._ _

__"Should any poor fool today disguised among us as a great warrior get it in mind to bring turmoil to that wrecked realm, it will not be the start of a war. He will be expressly punished by _me_. That fool, if hidden among our people who have upon Earth acted with matchless honor despite the many insults visited on our race, insults visited even by me, should heed my reputation for century-spanning grudges."_ _

**(Then: Asgard)**

"You're many times more skillful than she is," Baldur gravely tells Loki. "You need not boast or brag but I would like to see you given your due."

The Vanir seiðkona, center of attention, is weaving illusions for the crowd she's drawn: part comedy and part spectacle. Sorcery often carries an air of gravity, but here they are at the Þing where gods travel from even the most remote islands of Asgard and Vanaheimr to have legal matters heard and settled. That is grave enough that fun is had to balance it.

The rawness of her art and small scale of her arena reveal the seiðkona limited in her power to delude. No doubt her strengths lie elsewhere. Baldur has sat on the steps before Asgard's throne and watched Loki fill the great space with marvels from myths and sagas and knows his brother to be profoundly more skilled.

Loki chuckles as they leave the scene, giving it a little thought and with a twist of the wrist producing Frey's golden boar with all its bristling hairs and its whisking tail. It has a gallop around them, bucking and charging unseen opponents and prancing a little boar-like trot.

Baldur is so caught up in the perfect simulacrum he hardly marks the passing of other men heading to the festival areas. Some men stop and attend the boar and its frolicking.

They fail to appreciate the skill involved in the illusion. A fellow with a profuse blond beard raises his voice from among them.

"Luring boys off between the tents? It does take a sick mind to turn a man to women's arts."

Baldur looks up, meeting eyes with the accuser. He isn't surprised the man takes pause; Baldur's looks stun, though he is growing still. He carries a masculine beauty to him that spurs gawking silences. The motley gaggle doesn't appear to know what to make of him. Baldur calls up the boastful tones of his eldest brother:

" _Him?_ Pray not. He'll be the one keeping your wives and sisters satisfied tonight while you lie in disgrace, bloated with more mead than you're worthy to hold."

Loki smirks, shaking his head less at the men and moreso to ask Baldur who he's growing into.

"He is kind to defend me and kinder to warn you why your children will have my eyes, but I need no defense. You should raise an army of your kinsmen before you risk provoking me to battle."

Baldur takes care to stay out of the way of Loki's ensuing brawl.

The band stupid enough to mock his brother are quickly realizing their terrible judgment. Loki divests them of their weapons and goes to thrashing them with those so soundly that one opponent backs away, terrified to come to his kinsmen's aid.

Baldur beckons him. The coward chooses the kinder of two beatings. Loki, when slighted, is taken over by a look so vicious that none mistake he wishes first and only to deal pain, the successive disgrace of his opponents entirely coincidental.

Baldur sports with his single opponent, drawing his beating out with a smile so good natured that the man, although laid flat on his back, looks up at the sky with profound relief. As for his kith and kin, two men lie unconscious, one of them's leg snapped in twain. The loud blond has been dealt a grievous wound to his buttocks: the fastest way to brand an opponent soft – as honorless as Loki for centuries to come. A man of honor should always be capable of guarding his back. They all weep, if not tears then blood from from their wounds.

Loki throws the purloined axe in his hand, it spins once at great velocity into the dirt where it buries itself almost to the haft.

"You robbed me," Loki warns Baldur as they walk away, but he is smiling to himself. Baldur thinks Loki will be better fun, now, for the rest of the Þing. He might even be convinced to dance without Fandral spending time at begging and plying him with newly acquired jewelry to match the dresses Loki brought along.

Baldur realized as he grew into a man that Fandral and Loki are chaste with each other but the swordsman will go to lengths so that he may pine after over dinner and dance with Loki's breasts.

"You weren't doing anything impressive dispatching a few louts," Baldur says. "You didn't miss any sport letting me have at one."

Loki looks up to the sky, pausing and then looking at his baby brother in a way that demands academic attention.

"Night is oncoming. You'll be drunk soon. Now, what are my rules?"

Baldur takes a breath:

"Never rely on father's name. Never lose. Never tell Thor."

"Never tell Thor what?" Thor calls from a distance, hearing keen.

Loki grimaces, teeth grit, eyes rolling in annoyance.

Their eldest brother reaches them and folds his arms over his broad chest, looking suspiciously at the two of them – as suspiciously as he can after being at his cups for a few hours.

"Amend the last: Never _say_ Thor, it's sure to conjure him. He loves the name Thor," Loki says. 

"No more dearly than you love 'Loki'."

Loki scoffs.

"From the lips of my lovers; unlike you, I nary run to it like an excited hound."

Thor's folded arms shift to rest upon his hips. One hand pats the handle of Mjölnir.

"Take care, brother! They've a ring just over the hill for settling these differences of opinion."

Baldur would all the same rather not be diverted from drink by Loki and Thor having a round with staffs.

"Loki is not bred of the same stuff as you or I, Thor. He doesn't seek a crowd before securing his triumphs," Baldur says.

Thor grins.

"You betray him, Baldur. You've been fighting, Loki! Who, and for what insult?"

Loki yawns, smacking his lips, looking coolly at Thor. 

"Enough you know that I won. Don't waste your time clucking after me like a mother hen."

Thor takes offense.

"I'll put you on the ground and sit aback you until I've hatched an answer from your smart mouth."

Baldur smiles, shyly now. He knows what it's all about but it makes him feel four hundred again. He'd like to be seen as a warrior. He has been to war. 

"I am old enough, diligent as you two are, to no longer need dramatic enactments of manhood. Manhood now comes to me naturally," he says.

Thor thinks on Baldur's words. His smile gloats.

"Our baby brother spares you so artfully I am inclined to believe him," Thor says. "Now, I came to collect Baldur to join me in enjoying the mead. You are invited."

Loki waves Thor away, no longer cold to him but affecting boredom.

"Such tiresome company I decline."

Thor claps Baldur on the shoulder, leaning over to say as if in secret:

"Come, Baldur, and drink with the men. Loki has his own traditions to exhaust himself at. Better only one of us poach other men's wives or we three will gain the wrong reputation."

Loki's smile rebounds. He wets his lips, coming alive.

"And kiss virgins, Thor, where virgins are best pleased by kisses. And take a man or two before the weekend is done."

Thor leans upon Baldur and has a laugh.

"Mark Loki's ways: entirely without honor but filled with ambition."

Loki looks the part of a hungering viper.

"Run along, now, Baldur," he says sweetly. "Guard _your_ honor close."

Baldur bids goodbye with a smirk and a wave and follows Thor toward the raucous sounds from the tents where men drink and sing. 

"From the two of you I have learned all there is to know of manhood. Being made wise, I start my drinking late that I might, though half in vain, drag you off when the honey-wave has hold of you and you start trying to fight both men and furniture."

Thor is merry; he ever is when there are so many Æsir and Vanir about he might win the adoration of.

"The Norns have gifted you, brother, not only with the best face of all men but with Loki and I who were left to make our separate ways in the world. Now you, never making your own mistakes, will indeed look to all unnaturally wise."

The attentions his brothers pay him fill Baldur with warmth, but he sees the hole in their constant shepherding:

"So wise am I I've started no fights of my own. I must hang about the ring tomorrow and find men to champion to knock enough heads in to grow my own honor."

As they enter a tent where a fire burns, smoke evacuating through the hole high above the center of the tent, and wax runs in rivulets down candles' sides, Thor takes two mugs of mead, passing one to Baldur, drink sloshing with Thor's careless enthusiasm.

"Cruel injustice we wreck upon you. The boar-headed ring hugging your bicep is silent upon your wartime deeds. Your bronze brooch, too."

Baldur lets the honey-rich mead wash down the taste of dust kicked up from horses trotting the thoroughfares. He graces Thor with a grudging smile as they find space upon the benches amid gabbing warriors – most men, some shieldmaidens. The rest of their band may sometime later find them, but it is politics for Odin's sons to be seen alone – approachable, if not approached. Their father is within his tent, taking petitions from far flung Æsir within his eternal domain – islands scattered like jewels across the Realm – while their mother plays dulcimer for the pleasure of those who wait.

Loki abhors being only _seen_. Tomorrow, when the first fervor for drink has died down into the first hangovers, he or she will make an entrance, poised and peerless.

Baldur smiles at Thor over his wooden pint and takes a second, heartier sip. He cannot bear to tell his brother that Thor has a thousand more such badges of valor as Baldur wears tonight. He is cherished, but he is a man now and must alone discover what beyond his great beauty will ink his name upon the pages of history alongside his brothers'.


	13. Chapter 13

**(Now: the Helicarrier)**

"My mind has not been at rest since you failed to return with the rest of them," Fandral says as he gives Thor a back-clapping hug.

From Sif there is only continued concern.

"What of Loki?"

Thor is swift with his reassurance.

"He is preparing the Jötnar to depart Earth with us."

"Such a short time ago those words would have rung of madness," Hogun says.

Thor is uncertain exactly what his friends will have to say, but moves forward with it.

"I have chosen make Loki my peace-weaver, and myself his."

They are quiet, each considering the inherent complexities. Fandral, as usual, finds words first.

"That's going to be tricky when it comes to the bride price, and morning gifts, and dowry. Can all that be forgone when your inheritance is so soon all the same? No one's giving up their virginity in any way. And the sex of the participants has yet to be decided. It will all be most unprecedented."

Sif speaks in the softest voice that will carry.

"…I believe that Freyja is dead. And…"

She says not Frigga.

"Knowing, with the history we share, what I ask: Sif – would you do us the honor of presiding as the harvest goddess who blesses our union a bountiful one?"

Sif smiles, though her eyes have filled with tears. How much is for loss of Asgard's past and how much for her concession to marry away her love Thor cannot know.

"Yes. My father governs still our great fields of wheat with his old knowledge and free advice. I know when to sow and when to harvest. To give my consecration at this first marriage in the wake of disaster, we waste no time in recovering the sacred rites. I will follow proudly in Freyja and Frigga's sted."

\----

Maria Hill quietly lets herself into the chapel. It's evening, and Col. James Rhodes is alone in the front row. An American flag has been draped across the altar. People have left not fresh flowers but paraphernalia at the foot of the pall-bearing altar. Maria approaches uncertainly. She hasn't had time to come and pay her respects and with Rhodes there she's apprehensive she'll miss some aspect of etiquette obvious to any serviceman.

"May I sit?" she asks.

Rhodes looks up with a smile.

"Oh yeah, just don't salute. You're not exactly a civilian but you're not a servicewoman, either."

Maria smiles, knowing that's the awkward he's helping her avoid making him cringed through. She takes a seat beside him. For a few minutes, she just looks at the tributes: drawings, some fake flowers who knows who had in their room, folded letters, a small Statue of Liberty, a Captain America action figure, a cup of coffee – cold by now, an autographed picture of Steve and a wooden cross.

"He didn't deserve an eternity in Hell," she says. "I know we've been short on alternatives, but I can't stop thinking if he was driven to that resort then SHIELD failed him."

Rhodes shakes his head.

"He was a soldier. He had a job to do. So did you. Was there another way? Maybe. But Surtr and Thanos are gone."

Maria folds her hands in her lap. She remembers Steve smiling. He was never comfortable with certain aspects of SHIELD's work. Even so if he was on board the Helicarrier or in a facility he'd be the first to lend a hand with maintenance work, heavy lifting or hearing out agents' fears and concerns.

There's no casket. No remains – at least not on board. Steve's remains are in a New York morgue. SHIELD has the location and the number of his slot in the morgue freezer, but there's no going into a hot zone to retrieve him.

The funeral service is tomorrow morning. Everyone's so busy that Fury and Rhodes, as his honor guard, laid out the flag in memorial to let people come and go today.

Rhodes is staring at the pall.

"Nobody in the Armed Forces gets through boot without hearing the story of Captain America. Low income, dregs of Brooklyn, sick every way a body can be sick and still live. He's a symbol for what you should be reborn into once you make it to the other side of training."

Maria remembers the feeling of coming out of SHIELD training. Ready to kill, yes, but ready to put herself second and her country and the United Nations first.

"Did you know him well?" she asks.

"That's the funny thing. Steve, he acted like I was _his_ hero," Rhodes says, laughing off his urge toward modesty. "He wanted to know everything he'd missed. Every operation, every new piece of equipment, how the Air Force broke off from the Army. He wanted to know how I became a soldier, the stories of me climbing the ladder rank by rank, everywhere I went and what I did. He was keen on knowing how women are doing now that they're part of the service. He said he knew a 'dame' that should have been in uniform. The guy could listen forever. He'd just sit there and he'd smile. It was like being in front of an audience at one of Tony's events without the seven out of ten chance of crippling embarrassment."

Rhodes wants to tell her as much as he wants to stay humble, conversation hungry. Maria can read people that well. Tony hasn't left the room he shares with Rhodes and Bruce since he returned from SHIELD and Hydra's joint operation. Even before that, Rhodes had gotten into the habit of bringing Tony food, the genius remaining unseen.

Maria doesn't know _exactly_ what's going on with that – she's heard Tony has a new interest in biology and knows he's extremely driven. Obviously Tony doesn't have time for mourning. Stark is Rhodes' best friend, not to mention Tony is the man who actually lived with Steve week in and week out at Avengers Tower. Maria puts herself in the psychological position of a pseudo-Tony, knowing Rhodes would prefer to be talking to Stark.

Instincts tell her Iron Man must be deaf and mute with obsession.

"So you two were good friends," she says. "It sounds like you spent a lot of time together."

Rhodes' smile picks back up. He confirms it with a nod. He searches his thoughts a minute. Maria feels something personal coming.

"A black kid going into any branch of the service knew there was a brother in the Howling Commandos. Nobody told Gabriel Jones who to march with, what vehicle to ride in, which canteen he was supposed to go to. He got promoted to an officer and went on up the ranks after Steve disappeared," Rhodes says.

It's not the whole story. Maria has on her 'compassionate listening' face. She's also listening compassionately, layers beneath her self-control. She just can't put being a spy on hold any more than anyone else at SHIELD with level eight security clearance.

"We went and visited my parents, because he wanted to hear from them about growing up during the Civil Rights movement. He knew it went down, but the guy had the whole world to catch up on a step at a time," Rhodes says. "My dad handed Steve his iPad and had him read 'Letter from a Birmingham Jail.' Steve's probably halfway through it and he just starts to cry. I mean _real_ crying. He kept on reading. My dad sat there watching him, and my dad starts crying, too. My mom gets up and leaves the room – heads back to the bedroom. She has a thing about people seeing her make-up run, but it was more she doesn't like to talk about growing up in South Philly back when. You can't stay dry eyed watching that, but it hit me funny. I realized all three of them had rewound in time to things I'd only seen pictures and watched movies of. —There'd be weird times like that. Most of the time, this guy is twenty or more years younger than me. Then, all of a sudden, something skews that."

Maria looks at the flag, bright colored, whites perfect. It comes to her slowly that this flag that Steve Rogers never touched and never saw is what remains of the man he had been before this war began. Steve is more than dead. She remembers Steve Rogers in the debriefing room, no longer the Avenger she worked beside in the past. He had the wrong eyes. The hellfire wrought other subtle changes Maria couldn't put her finger on. Maria knows, even if she can't philosophically understand the full implications, that he carried that corruption beyond his death.

 

Rhodes sighs, growing melancholic, too, beside her. He may not be thinking the same thoughts, but they're close enough.

"When six men and women from the Armed Forces who moved on to SHIELD fold up this flag in front of me, seeing as Steve has no relatives and I'm the closest serviceman to him they'll put it in my arms. I'll be holding onto it until – _if_ –his memorial is put together. Never in my life imagined I'd receive the flag of Captain America."

"I don't think the Director suspected he'd be part of Captain America's honor guard," Maria says, wearing half a smile. She came to pay respects, but her work never stops: "Could you update me on the situation with Iron Man?"

Rhodes huffs a laugh.

"Officially, before Stark Industries cut all weapons programs, I was liaison between Stark Industries and the military in the department of acquisitions," he says. "Before I was that, and _now_ , I'm liaison between Tony Stark and living breathing human beings. He thinks he'll crack this virus. He might. It's time for us to go, though, before either of us picks it up. When the funeral's over, I'm cat-herding him back to the floors at Avengers Tower where Pepper's working, give or take another quarantine."

Maria stands to leave, but stops, her 'concerned friend' role filling in a blank.

"Colonel; your parents?"

"They're dead, Hill. Virus." He shakes his head. "I have duties. Later, when I don't, I'll deal with that."

\----

Bruce Banner and Tony Stark sit pouring over texts and touchscreens, the ghost of exhaustion haunting them both but neither heeding its biddings.

Red Skull looms in silent study of them at them from the doorway of their room. For him to enter, one had to give verbal permission, but neither have the least interest in what he's come to them about.

He steps past the portal, allowing its electronic panels to slide shut behind him.

"Will you two, men possessed, hear the plea I have prepared as, with despair, I thought of you?"

"As long as when I say 'fuck off' you back off before Bruce makes you fuck off through the wall. He has like fifteen percent self-control when somebody asks him for favors that entail punching," Tony Stark says, still poring over his touchpad.

Red Skull looks at each of them. Their diligence by all accounts commends. He would without question applaud that ardor with which they search each sentence, word and illustration for illumination. It makes his plea all the harder to sell. He thinks, in his victory, he has all right to sell it, either as some relief for the disillusioned to grasp to or as a prayer of solidarity.

"What if I had brought virus in one hand and a panacea, a mithradate to erase all but the beneficial effects in the other?" he begins with utmost balance. "Who would that vaccine be first distributed to? Those in power. Those with money to procure it. Those leeches who leave all others sickened, crippled and drowning in the spreading pools of their toxic feces." He lays his gloved hand upon their shared desk. "Would the Maasai nomads be rushed this panphramacon? The Chinese factory worker? The child sick from radiation withering in the hospital from leukemia? Hydra has told me stories of this modern world. The Führer has been mythologized into a singular, peerless Satan while across the planet genocides rage and men as evil or worse dictate the fates of human nations."

The Hulk and Iron Man attend him. Red Skull smiles, lips deprived of most muscles dragged into that expression so familiar to humans with their full facilities.

"No man may decide which among us deserves to live and which to die. I have led Lady Justice, blindfolded – armed with scales and sword – into the very blood of the human race! Why is it you seek a cure?" He leans toward the classically human of the two, eyes afire with purpose. "I know, Tony Stark: Not for yourself, not for right – not at all for beneficence. You slave tirelessly only for your princess in her hermetically sealed tower."

One victory. Stark sits up, his inspiration and exhalation bound up with emotional pain. Red Skull gives no quarter. He throws his hand out to encompass both himself and Bruce Banner, across the desk.

"Look upon me. Upon the _beast_ beside me who fought to continue the work which produced me that led only to greater deformities yet." All the words close to articulation on Banner's tongue die with this. Red Skull goes on: "I have fulfilled all we three, Erskine and Howard Stark fought so long for: Humans immune to radiation, to disease, to all but the most radical of accidents. Humans with such vitality they heal from every common insult to their body. Has the world room for seven billion such humans? It does not! The world, too, must be mended from the refuse spewed by human greed. Speak to me as scientists: tell me what evil I have wrecked."

Stark pushes his thumb and forefinger against his eyebrows to either side of his nose. He looks over.

"…you laid lot of hurt on a lot of people. Hurt like nobody else has ever made humans hurt. I'd like to hurt you like that. Like every screaming mother. _Everybody_ who died alone in the dark. Every scared little kid."

Johann Schmidt thinks in silence of the millions dying. He thinks of his dream, already achieved. He remembers burning for so many hours that time disappeared until only pain and his dedication remained.

"Lash me to the stake, Stark. Set fire to my body once more. I am vindicated and your revenge matters nothing to me. You may or may not join the next ranks of humanity. That is not within my limited power to know. I will stand still and you may bind me. You may load tinder at my feet. You may light the inferno. My victory will blaze on as my flesh you destroy—as for you, you have yet to prove yourself against the spreading fire."

Stark presses his hands to his forehead, eyes locked on his book.

"Shut up. I can _fix_ it. I can make it so they get the kick and don't have to die. I just have to find the switch. —Bruce. Drop this guy from altitude. He'll be okay. He can think about what a fuck he is on the way down."

Banner pipes up, invigorated, no longer undecided.

"Sorry," Banner says with a friendly smile and green eyes. "You heard him. Your part's done so… I'm alright if you go skydiving." His brow riddles up. He looks in pain and his voice is rougher and deeper. "I would have been okay if my best friend said to rip you limb from limb and festoon the cabin with your intestines. That might slow down his work." His eyebrows rise innocently above his glowing eyes. "We're all happier this way, right? Except for everything behind my prefrontal cortex."

Red Skull discovers himself lifted from the ground by the back of his leather coat – hauled into the hallway as if weightless. He thrashes, meaning to escape his garment. Thwarted, he kicks.

The kick was, retrospectively, a poor idea. Banner punches him in the head, now stained green, larger in size – only barely in control.

A security officer asks where they're going.

"Impeding SHIELD initiative. Iron Man want him to get taste of skydiving. Once he hits the ground, he free. 'Thank you' for helping Avengers. Okay?" Banner rumbles in a voice no one would argue with.

He loses his last powers of conversation when they reach the deck. He ripples outward to his full size and weight the moment he steps into the sun.

Red Skull's fierce resentment is only barely tempered when a brassy, humane flight officer talks the surly Hulk into waiting until she hands Red Skull a parachute.

The Hulk throws him as far and hard as he can over the airship's side.

\----

Fandral inquires of three humans before he learns Agent Darcy Lewis is in the mess hall, taking her dinner. He goes there. The woman he finds is poking her fork into her sustenance with her good hand, too overcome with tears to eat.

He takes his seat beside her, heart struck through with fear.

"You're crying."

Sniffling until she's unclogged enough to talk, she nods to him.

"My parents are dead, but—"

He startles, swiftly summoning consolation.

"Darcy…"

She shakes her head until he falls silent.

"No. My little brother. He's alive. I'm _happy_ , Fandral. I'm really happy." Her bleary-eyed smiled resonates with Fandral's close understanding of commitment and war. "I know there's all these people that I'm never going to see again. But all this time I've thought 'He's just a little kid'. How scared he has to be. I called his cell phone… He's alive. He's alone. He beat the virus. He's still scared but he's with state workers. He promised he'd be strong. He's _okay_."

Fandral offers her his arms as emotion sweeps her up again. He holds near the woman who at this moment has, in the fierce hug with which she has attached herself to him, fallen some halfway into his lap. Her tears fall freely upon his armor. She shudders with sobs. Not every sob is audible.

Fandral searches for a better position on the stool so that she may spend her grief and her joy in better comfort, finally discovering a moderately chaste means to slide his limbs beneath her legs and collect her into his lap.

Darcy laughs, embarrassed, eyes and cheeks swollen from crying.

"I'm not, like, five."

He assesses that claim and in the end fails to make sense of it.

"Five what?"

"Years _old_ ," she says.

His eyes flicker down, trying not to rest too terribly long on her breasts which are full yet especially buoyant for their weight. Everything else is curves. It's a small, wholly internal struggle but he raises his blue eyes to hers.

"There is no art in the Nine Realms by which I could be deceived to think you that. Is this inappropriate? I observed that you were slowly falling off the stool."

Agent Lewis sighs, taking advantage of her new position to drape her arms over his shoulder, wrapping them around his neck.

"I _love_ how they make them in Asgard. Even the kind of sketchy guys are super dashing." She sees right away that he doesn't follow that, either. "You know: sketchy. Like Loki is sketchy because he's always doing something creepy; you're sketchy because, come on, you're clearly not fidelity guy, you're all up on every single girl. And you're a breast man." He has time to think that didn't sound like a complaint as an introspective look takes her over. "Oh my god: we could motorboat."

Although it is in a modern parlance he does not speak, he suspects he would like to follow her up on her suggestion. She is giggling, which he much prefers to seeing her overwhelmed with emotions. Her emotions will haunt her for days and weeks. He knows from past experience and observation that too much thought upon a hardship in the first hours can be detrimental to the healing of the unseen wounds.

His mind provides worries enough of his own. He thinks of her brother, and that her brother is without kin. He decides should like to know where, in light of the worst that might happen. His question is spoken softly:

"Darcy, do you have any idea yet if you will become ill?"

She shrugs, hugging no closer and neither withdrawing. He hears resignation in her voice, but weak humor, too.

"Smallpox? Yeah. It's all up in my bloodstream after NYC. Having my last meal before iso. That's just how it is. Anyway, it's like, you don't _not_ get it. I mean, right now, Jane's dodged it, but that won't last. If I hid in Asgard my whole life, one trip to Earth and I might go bottom up." She winces, exposing the depths of her fear, albeit briefly. "I'm not saying I'm ready, just that after all this now that I have to run the gauntlet I'm not gonna complain."

"You must tell me where your brother is," he says. "Should you perish, I swear to you he will want for nothing."

The tears leap to Darcy's eyes again. Her lips tremble when she smiles. She blinks rapidly, fighting them back in a valiant effort to speak without sobbing.

"Fandral, that's so… You barely know me. We're like an action movie couple that's really into each other because of all the adrenaline and then later it's like 'You know, maybe those two weren't actually that compatible.' But: Thank you."

Emotion pours into Fandral's own chest, and his eyes, though tear have yet to find him, feel heated at the edges of his eyelids.

"You do not understand how much I have lost. I say this not to accuse or fault you. I have lived for ages, and when I return home I will not return to the home I know. The names of so many already dead are yet unknown to me, save the name of Volstagg, constant companion throughout my life. Bringing with me a boy who has yet to have seen even one of the wonders of the Realm Eternal would lessen the burden upon my heart."

Darcy places her hand on the breast of his armor.

"I could make it, too. Do I get adopted?"

He chuckles, attraction to the young human rising beneath her hand and, too, in his loins. He marvels to himself that he has neither devised nor pursued this. She has in fact most delightfully corralled him through her own persistence.

"'Adopted' is an inappropriate word. I have no ambition to mimic the situation of my liege-lord-to-be and my long friend and impending queen, his young brother."

She is beautiful; her smile is beautiful; he is taken with the way she relaxes into his embrace.

"I have all kinds of things to live for, but that's pretty motivating," she says.

Passion takes him in its grasp. The physical kind, but moreso the passion of a valorous warrior. He must by any means conjure a solution.

"…you say the disease is in your blood."

"Yuh-hunh. It hangs out there until it gets all its buddies together and then they throw a party that really, really sucks if you're not a virus."

Fandral reviews to himself all he knows.

"In my blood they gain no traction. Could we not by some device our blood continuously share? I am no healer, it only seems to me that I might, in union with you, ease the most dangerous of the effects. Even destroy their contingent."

Darcy wrinkles her brow, either confused or highly skeptical.

"I'm on board with your train of thought, but we're not the same species. I don't even know what your blood is made of."

"'Species' I, in return, know nothing of. I intend not vulgarity but, as for my blood, the seed of an Æsir's body finds root within a human with facility. Is it not likely that my blood, too, would conform to your human body's requirements?"

The woman grows sadder and quieter than he has yet witnessed her.

"…that's sort of like cheating, Fandral. I get Asgardian blood and all these other people, who deserve it just as much, don't get any? Even if it worked, you might get some friction from the people who say you're making a really selfish choice."

He reviews the events of the past years and her place as a warrior beside him, more than once, across them.

"Assuming that we may, through your many ambitious technologies, indeed share our blood while the disease runs its course, who would deny me the right to spend my blood as pleases me? Everywhere is tragedy. I cannot alleviate all suffering. I know not even if such a transaction would ease _your_ suffering in your time of need. The fact remains I wish to make this effort for a single captivating human woman, that she may raise her young brother under my protection."

Darcy rests her head on his shoulders, grinning wide enough her teeth show.

"Wow. You're unbelievable. I'm like ready to pounce you like a lioness or a jaguar or an arctic hare landing on its fleshy prey in the depths of winter. Um. This is totally forward of me. So, I think it's cool because if later you're like whatever there's no legal reason it has to be recognized in Asgard: If we signed off on a civil union – if we got a legal human marriage – we'd have totally different rights when it comes to where you wanna put your fluids."

Fandral, in seriousness, nods. It is no impairment.

"Then, the question is only how one is to be procured."

Darcy's eyes get wide. She reaches up and traces his moustache under her fingers.

"I'm so fast. I'm like a cheetah or a sailfish or a springbok." Her grin returns. "Now I feel like I'm taking advantage of you. —no. Don't listen to what I just said. I also think there's a qualified notary public on the ship in case SHIELD has to do some fast loophole dancing. Like this. _Just_ like this."

Purpose foregrounded in his warrior's mind animates him, preparing him in every way for action.

"No time should be wasted."

Darcy, in his embrace, is so taken aback Fandral is for a moment staggered searching his mind for what wrongdoing has transpired.

"Hello. _Fiancée_ here. The kissing?"

Fandral begins to laugh. It is all the height of absurdity, but she is right. He slips his hand behind her head, through her long hair, kissing her. He marvels her lips are so full and with that so soft. He submits to himself that she noticed, without prompting, his appreciation of the luscious fruits that adorn the chest of the fairer sex and, pushing his hand up her toned abdomen, one of those he cups through the fabric of her SHIELD uniform.

He is not convinced he is prepared to be a husband, but her breast – soft and filling his palm and fingers like the sweetest swelling of any plant known – goes a long way to convincing him it will all be perfectly amenable in the long term.

After all, he believes he understood the meaning of threesomes.

\----

The thing about Natasha is that she can be anything she wants to be. What they made over there in Russia… They made a weapon, yeah, but a weapon's a tool. It gets hard on Clint knowing Natasha doesn't think there's enough person in there to make the moral choice when it comes down to the wire. She doesn't see what he sees. Not yet. That day is coming. He's watched her work. He know exactly what she's capable of. NY was when the first domino fell and now he looks at her and is watching that cascade she worked so hard to set up. He's not afraid for Natasha, and he's not afraid of Natasha. She brought him back from hell. Whatever's about to go down, she has his back and he has hers.

Natasha Romanov and Clint Barton sit side by side on an examination bed in medical. Clint remembers this set up. It wasn't this room, it was two rooms down. 

It was the day she saved his life the way he'd saved hers.

After that, they were straight.

Owing anything to anybody can be a real impediment in their line of work. Natasha had pulled him out of the fire, before. Standard extraction. This time she did something different: She trusted in him all the way to the end with her life on the line. 

They sit in silence. She's young and she's beautiful, make-up conservative and matte. Then there's her eyes.

It was those three things that made him look hard at her when under the order to kill. Her youth: 'Just' a girl. Beautiful. Soft face, perfect lips, big eyes, pert nose, plucked brow. Mascara. Lipstick. And then her eyes: blue with a stain of brown around the center, but that wasn't the important thing.

They were face to face and Clint saw her eyes and realized she'd played the game her whole life. It lay there in front of him plain as newsprint: Somebody took a little girl, a _beautiful_ little girl, picked out for her sweet face. They took that girl and they dragged her into the depths not of Hell but of human depravity.

Clint will kill women. A heartbeat doesn't pass if they're his mark, if he knows their crimes and they're marked for elimination.

Natalia Alianova Romanova had committed no crimes. She'd done her job. Clint is a one man elimination committee with the guilty in his sights, but there she was: Not innocent, not like people usually think of innocent, but a weapon. Snipers wrack up kills, but nobody puts the gun on trial.

Natasha looks at him, her decision reached.

They received her positive blood work twenty three minutes ago.

"Waiting isn't really my style."

Clint accepts it as it comes, nodding consent.

"S'not mine either. We'll do this like everything else. Together."

She smiles. It's the smile that's only for him. The real one. The one he coaxed out of her after a few years of cajoling.

"I want you beside me," she says. "We'll just go. It doesn't matter where."

"I wouldn't feel alright not knowing what the die lands on when it's cast," he says. "I wouldn't feel alright not gambling with the same dice, either."

Natasha's lips quirk in the way that says she's ribbing on him.

"You're older than me. You rescued me. You _listened_ to me. You taught me how to live like a human being." Her upper body sways on the examination bed, weight shifting from one side to the other a little bit like dancing; her playful eyes remain on his. "What I mean is, do you think of me like a daughter?"

He raises his eyebrows.

"I wouldn't say that."

Natasha slides sidelong into his space. Her hand trembles until it finds a place to rest on his jawline. She leans in and tastes his skin. Clint knows, matter of fact, that it tastes just like skin and they both know that's not the point. He takes their contact deeper, skin of their lips plus the slipperier skin inside their mouths and that muscle people call a tongue. His eyes closed, he rests one hand on her hip. Besides that, except for their mouths, the two of them are still.

"...the odds say one or both of us is going to die," Natasha says as she sits back. She gives him that smile that's all his again. "I don't think we can mess up our partnership because we took it in the wrong direction in the next week or two weeks."

Clint chuckles, misbehavior in his eyes.

"Maybe you'll even let me say 'that'."

He's playing with bullets.

Natasha takes a deep breath, steeling her resolve.

"I just… If you did. If you _ever_ did, I wanted to feel young enough or alive enough to be able to say it back."

Clint nods slow. He shrugs. He's an honest man and even more honest with her. If he hadn't been honest he never would have met the person behind the weapon.

"I know. I know all of it, Nat. Doesn't mean I can stop feeling it. I care what they did to you. Every part."

Natasha takes another deep breath, but this one she just lets out

"When we're alone on the ground, I want to be with you. Like people," she says.

Clint puts his hand on her shoulder. He grins, too full sin to just be sweet, but she smiles.

"I can do that. I am _more_ than biologically capable of that one. And we'll get some coffee, and have the coffee. We'll bust into a house, find a movie or a couple and watch movies, like people."

She breaks into laughter. She's twelve shades of adorable when she laughs and four of sexy.

"I think if I met you and I could ever have loved anybody, I would have loved you, Clint."

He weighs that. It's the most important thing she's never said to him. He loves her. That happened a long time ago. He fell in love with her and then he set it aside. Sometimes, privately, he thinks about it and enjoys it – never when he masturbates – but there's been no place for that in their lives.

He tries to explain it. He intends to make love to her in these few days they have, six orgasms for her for every one for him because women can do that, but that's not the important part.

"All you have to do is hold me," he says. "Maybe they cut you off from every feeling you ever had, but your intellect's still right here, and as a matter of fact that's the sexiest part of you."

She never blushes, not actually blushes, but she does today, for him.

"Let's go. We'll let it all happen," she says. "Just promise you'll keep working for SHIELD if you come through alive without me."

"I promise. You, too, Nat."

"…I promise, Clint."

Since she's staying off the bridge he's the one that goes to Fury, decision made, orders or no orders.

"Odds are one or both of us is gonna die," Clint tells him. "We won't do it in iso. We just wanna be on the ground, together. Give us this one human thing, sir."

Director Fury approves their airdrop.

They shoulder their rucksacks and head for the suburbs outside of Nashville where the pox has done its gruesome work but the weather's real nice.

\----

"Ground control to Major Tom," Rhodey says, standing over Tony.

"I've taken my protein pills and if you get my helmet I will put it on," Tony says without looking up.

Bruce snickers across the table.

"We're getting off this boat. Pack up your schoolbag. We'll do twenty days iso upstairs at the tower and if it works out we'll enter the bubble. Or not. They can just send us up food. Either way, this place is contaminated and we're leaving today."

"That sounds so reasonable," Tony says, reading diligently. "Can you put my schoolbag together, mom?"

"Even for a man saving the human race you are pushing it," Rhodey warns. He looks to Bruce. "You're drafted, other responsible parent. Help me get this guy's stuff together, huh?"

Bruce really laughs at that one. His more primitive brain says 'intruder alert' when it comes to Rhodey but the man has become background noise except when they're directly interacting. If he focuses on getting things together for Tony, who has no sense of self preservation, then he's not bothered.

Tony's occupies a straightforward place in Bruce's instincts. He's just not a threat. He initiates a lot of 'play' behavior – constantly – but that's exactly how the Hulk knows. For all the romping Tony does there's not a single threat signal.

Bruce doesn't know if Tony chose that consciously or if it's just a part of who he is, but ultimately that doesn't matter. The fact that the _odds_ are on it being an integral part of Tony's basic character make it even better. That's the kind of dependability Bruce has been hurting for for a long time.

"By now he's overshot me at biology," Bruce says, starting the packing. "I'm okay with that. Scientists don't make science happen without those other scientists over their shoulder shooting holes in their theories."

"Fury has us taking on a few more people, like Noah's ark," Rhodey warns both of them. "Dr. Jane Foster, Agent Inigo Vásconez – pretty much all the people who play the brain game and have avoided contamination."

Rhodey knows how Tony is with people, so Bruce bets Rhodey has a good idea how Bruce himself is with people.

"I think we can divvy up quarantine areas on the upper floors. Robots serving meals on paper plates, and everything."

Tony stops, looking away from his book, finally, at Rhodey.

"If someone goes zombie then robots are going to execute them and decontaminate everything. Even if it's me," Tony says. He shrugs and goes back to his book. "Obviously not Bruce. Bruce can safely evict himself."

Alarm passes through Bruce. He pauses at packing. Rhodey doesn't pause, though. He keeps on with his business, zipping up a bag.

"I _told_ you, man. There is no zombie apocalypse. It doesn't matter that the bubble is technically, strictly equipped for withstanding a six month zombie siege. It's just smallpox, Tony. Nobody's eating brains." Rhodey does stop, just to look at Tony. "This is the literal, actual end of the world and we are zombie free. Let the dream die."

Tony pounds his fist against the table, raising his chin and looking defiantly at his best friend.

"The dream will _never_ die."

Rhodey slaps a hand to his heart, getting serious.

"I swear to you that if I break out in smallpox I will try and get past the security measures to eat your brain."

Tony lets out a breath of relief.

"—thank you. You may need something really heavy. I hear my skull is super thick."

Bruce slowly looks from one of them to the other and back, but as he does the apparent bizarreness of the situation begins to ebb away. He smiles, thinking that strange as it is and as terrible as the entire world is he's about to go somewhere he's never stayed as long as he plans to stay, before, even before the experiment went wrong: a place with good friends.

"I… should have spent a lot more time at Avengers Tower. I mean: Already. Before this. I would have liked it."

Tony looks up from his book, grinning big.

"No time like the end of the world."

\----

Nick Fury has rolled a chair across the bridge to the ship's bow. He sits in silence, holding his chin in one hand. An endless expanse of ocean stretches before him, waves silently lapping against waves. Sunlight shines on their crests, although this morning there was rain and the windows of the bridge are speckled with windblown raindrops.

Fury is unsurprised when Brother Voodoo appears beside him, dressed smart in plain clothes – suit slacks and a sports coat, his arms folded behind his back, surveying the same scene. Fury hasn't gotten around to psychic-proofing anything, yet. The central stripe of dreaded, bright white hair remains and the painted circle incised with a V on his forehead has washed off to reveal a matching tattoo. The spy in Fury latches fiercely to those marks of identification; he didn't expect Brother Voodoo could be tracked by them out of costume. 

The man Nick Fury knows his bridge is manned by a skeleton crew with SHIELD personnel evacuated to staff facilities around the globe, gambling each will end up with enough survivors to continue operations. In a week or two weeks Fury himself may be dead. He's making his plans like he will be and planning contingencies for if he won't.

"Stephen Strange?" Fury asks the lone sorcerer.

" _Variola_ ," Brother Voodoo says. "He was an actual doctor, you know – M.D. – before he became a master of the mystic arts."

"Doctor Strange, then. I'm sorry for your loss," Fury says. He's guessing the man's brother is in his body, his soul a step displaced, but he's not inclined to stretch his legs and find out. "How's the war on your front?"

"No end in sight. Hell is engulfed in turmoil. Extra-dimensional incursions crop up day after week. Thanks to you and your Avengers, Earth is safe from the deep cosmic powers now that the Tesseract is vanished. But something's different, something has _changed_ in the flow of souls since that day."

"You're hoping I'll clarify the situation. You realize I have no way to verify if you're the actual Brother Voodoo who visited me before."

The sorcerer looks sidelong at Fury and grins, resignation in his brown eyes but respect in his grudged cheer.

"I'm not the same 'Brother Voodoo' who visited you before," he says, unfolding his arms and extending a hand. "Doctor Voodoo. Sorcerer and Houngan Supreme. –or doctor of psychology, if you prefer, and studied in medicine. I suspected you would not fully appreciate it if I came in my new regalia."

Fury cocks his brow but takes his hand, Doctor Voodoo's handshake firm despite Fury's mortal arm remaining where it rested. He has to say the man with him now has the same feeling around him as he did the last time, even if Fury isn't a trained – what? psychic? – who could tell if he was being tricked.

He takes a gamble on his intuition.

"Turns out we lived in a conjoined universe and a lot of unattached souls ended up shepherded out of the film festival being thrown by Eternity, or Thor calls him Yggdrasil, by the weaker twin, Death, for an after-party," Fury says. "The Tesseract broke off from Eternity with Death. They're not planning to write or call. If that makes sense to you, then you know as much as I do."

"The legends, occult lore and energies of those entities are known to me. They interact on such a scale few mortal or immortal beings would attempt to corral or question them." Doctor Voodoo laughs, scratching his neck self-consciously and side-eyeing Fury. "I have something to learn from you and your Avengers. Odin and Doctor Strange would be appalled to meddle on a cosmic scale without ritual and propitiation – even with them." Fury watches a change overcome the sorcerer. His hand falls away from his neck and he stands straighter. His brow narrows. "…thank you, Director Fury. Since I was chosen I have taken risks and hard actions I know Stephen would have frowned upon. But maybe this is the age of the young and the bold. Maybe I will keep open contact with you and your Avengers."

"I'm bold. I want to argue 'young,' but I'll take it," Fury concurs. "Asgard's tied up with Earth now and our best scientist won us the day with the giant 'magical artifact' in his chest. Whether I pass Red Skull's hazing or I don't, the time for discriminating between 'magic' and 'technology' is already over."

"Victor Von Doom, Lord of Latveria, would concur with you. I understand he has helped combat the virus, and the incursions. Just having battled him for the title of sorcerer supreme, I think you should let the right people know he is a megalomaniac of awesome power," Doctor Voodoo says. He returns his eyes to the sea. "And I think I should take a short trip to Hell and invoke the wretched Mephisto to cease wallowing like a pig in summer. He cast his lot with ours. His choices created this power vacuum. The beast should share the responsibility of putting Hell in order."

Fury chuckles.

"Good damn luck with that." 

Doctor Voodoo lays a hand upon Fury's shoulder, welcome and companionable. They match gazes.

" Jericho Drumm," Drumm introduces. "I wish you health, Nick."

Fury is left alone in his chair in his body with the ever-changing blue sea in front of him and a unified world government to plan. _Psychic shielding,_ he thinks. _You seem like a nice guy, Jericho. But I'll be damned if I don't get SHIELD some psychic shielding._

**(Then: The Aftermath of Battle)**

Tony Stark refuses to sit down at the Helicarrier's open conference table. He pushes both his hands through his hair, grimace sour; drops his hands to swing at his side. Searches the faces of his compatriots with a knotted brow.

"I'm beginning to wonder how effective we are at our _job_ if two out of three mass murdering world invaders get off scot-free."

"The earth is saved and safe," Thor says. Tony expected to hear that coming from him. 

"That's not my problem, Big Kahuna. _You_ are my problem." And there's the adorable shocked puppy face. Tony's seen that one. "—I like you, Thor. You just have this habit of making decisions that impact the entire human race by your lone self and then fairy dusting off to Neverland."

"Are you sure you're the person to be talking about not consulting on world rattling decisions?" Rhodey says. Everyone else wants to say it but everyone else thinks he'll pitch a fit their way they don't want to deal with. Rhodey doesn't care if he pitches a fit, effectively staunching the option. Tony resents Rhodey.

" _I_ am always here to answer for my actions. To _pay_ for my actions. Hasn't everyone here read my dossier? –except Rhodey, anyway, because he's on loan, but he doesn't need to. I'm not making too big a deal out of this am I?" He targets Natasha. Natasha is a level headed person. "Seriously. Am I?"

"He has a point," she says, shrugging. "I think the pivotal question is if it's our province to arrest and detain. SHIELD has the authority, but SHIELD isn't a police or military branch of the government."

"What government?" Clint scoffs, sitting unmoved, weighing the situation. Probably trying to decide if Tony or Thor is about to _become_ a situation.

"I acted in what I believed to be the best interests of the Tesseract," Thor says. "And, before, because the Tesseract was not so safe on Earth as in my father's vaults."

"And because you love your brother," Hill says, tone professionally neutral. 

Thor meets her eyes, unabashed.

"He was a victim."

Bruce, staying quietly out of the conversation, rubs the bridge of his nose.

"What Tony's trying to say is that at the end of these global crises you need protocol in place to make sure the resolution is fully representative of SHIELD's interests," Rhodey says. Tony loves Rhodey. Besides Rhodey and Pepper and sometimes Bruce he feels like he's speaking Esperanto.

"That's it. That's what I'm trying to say."

"Tony's right. And we have to get that protocol in place before we start relocating personnel. Even if today's governments collapse – even if SHIELD goes under, people with experience should put their recommendations on paper. We're those people," Fury decides.

"Damn it," Tony groans. "I won too early. I still wanna fight somebody."

"I think we have something more important to do," Bruce says. He's the definition of talking softly and carrying half a ton of a city-breaking Godzilla knock off. "I'd like us to have a moment of silence for Steve."

All the vigor drains out of Tony, along with the blood. His skin is cold and pale. He feels a little nauseous. 

Nobody else looks any better off, and nobody argues with that.


	14. Chapter 14

****

**(Now: Asgard)**

The ageless city which until weeks ago shone as a beacon of hope and prosperity lies in desolation. Toppled buildings clog her avenues with debris. Mourning Æsir and resolute Vanir and Álfar populate those streets. They work tirelessly in teams of two and three or more to clear the obstructions most impeding congress. All who have survived have been unburied and pulled from the wreckage. Now there are only bodies to find and ruined mementos: arm rings, drinking horns, works of art crafted from gold – the rewards of lifetimes of valor reduced to so much litter. Worse, most cannot be reunited and burned with the dead who achieved them. Worse still, those dead dwell not in Hel but in an unbreachable universe apart, never again to be seen.

Thor, king, armor shining in the daylight tours the streets aback Sleipnir. His nephew, fine head raised, swivels his dark ears, delicate nostrils flaring. His keen nose has already revealed two hidden corpses this morrow.

Sif rides beside them, her mare stirred by Sleipnir's visible energy but uncomprehending of his designs. Battle armor similarly bedecks the shieldmaiden. Besides cataloging the needs of the city, of Thor's toiling subjects, forays into the ruins present dangers in the form of unstable footing and collapsing stone.

Peace prevails over the demolished city with its blood-stained pavement. Birds perch on broken walls, singing to the sky. Gardens bloom. Vines make their first incursions into the rubble. Other little plants join them, peeking up where they find traction. Sif's mare casts longing looks toward grazing opportunities.

Thor thinks to his beloved. Loki must also toil. Jötunheimr's devastation occured in the past, yet remains the more complete. The Realm's new allies have offered to split their duties, but the king declined. That Realm is to be repaired by the magic of a living planet. Only weeks ago Jötnar swarmed the thoroughfares Thor now rides, combing the ruins for survivors and carrying the bodies of the dead to the pyres alongside their mortal foes. Fights there were, but none died. Loki and Thor named it shame for their now-sibling races to collect on debts of blood or respond to slurs from whichever lips with violence. Pride triumphed against animosity, yet the two kings owed much to their people's mutual exhaustion.

Thor's coronation was a small event compared to many great kings of history achieving the throne. Necessity prevailed against ceremony. The people of Asgard required a leader and the appointment of new commanders and advisors, and Asgard could not have Jötunheimr's king in residence with no king to parlay with him on even terms.

Rule of Vanaheimr has passed to Hnoss, Freyja's firstborn daughter, a formidible seiðkona in her own right.

"So much has transpired, and all of it speared with pains of the heart and conscience," Thor says as their horses' hooves clap the pavement. Truthfully he could not bear to speak of it in his or Sif's chamber where tears might freely be shed. He practices a fresh cadence to his speech in memory of his father. Its artificial quality quells his throat before it chokes, his eyes before they tear and the threat of flagging posture.

"Loki will soon return to Asgard. A wedding banquet will be welcome respite for us all," Sif says. "I beg permission to speak freely, my liege."

"You have it," Thor says.

Sif reins in her mare. A backward shift in Thor's weight and Sleipnir, too, halts, one ear turned toward their conversation. Thor muses briefly upon what counsel his nephew would give while Sif collects her words.

"What others speak of as love is a passing affection compared to Loki's passion for you. But heart and conscience may not by marriage vows alone be mended. I fear for you both."

Thor imagines they are dancing, his steps uncertain and head spinning. Ensuring he does not misplace his words provides not only distance but an unexpected degree of insight.

"My brother – my love – need only slip my sight and wicked schemes pour from his lips into unwary ears; worse, the ears of eager conspirators. He cannot be expected to forever abstain from that which is his delight. Trouble is ever a friend to him, now more than ever."

However he strove, Thor's voice sticks in the end. He follows Sif's suit in dismounting their steeds. They walk among flowers and rubble while the mare grazes and Sleipnir makes haste away. It is corpses they seek, and in truth he is better suited to discover them without Thor burdening his back. Thor and Sif impede him until the time comes for moving stone.

Sif gazes up into the clear sky and then looks down and away to where untended plants grow wild.

"As your sister and his, what more can be spoken of than the necessity of ever girding ourselves against his next crime?" Expression pained, she returns her eyes to Thor. "The hardest – the worst of it – is that it may be centuries away."

Melancholy, heavy and dark, descends on Asgard's regent. He imagines if he were to lie upon the grass sleep would find him in its shade. Would that he could enjoy peace and solitude enough to reconcile with himself.

"He is my captive; I his slave. But Loki will revenge himself upon me if I rob him of all liberty." He inhales deeply, knowing Sif welcomes sharing his burdens. "The Tesseract had the power and desire to strip him of the chaos in his mind. He wished to take her offer. Yet what else is Loki if not unpredictable? My very soul grew sick at the thought of losing the man I delight in to the peace she proposed. No longer is Loki culpable for his transgressions – his crimes are forever mine. Any and every crime."

Sif steps before him, bringing him into her arms. She embraces him in silence, armor to armor, until the needful ferocity of the embrace he returns diminishes, for the melancholy abates. The shieldmaiden holds him at arm's length, compassion in her gaze.

"You are not alone, Thor. To hold the thought sickens me. Loki and I proved our yet unfulfilled potential to slay one another; I do not love him any less."

His hands rest upon Sif's shoulders. He sees her love for him remains, but she stands unabashed. Someday, he will ask her why she chose never to confess her love. Today the wound is too raw and he would not inflict upon her again that he has never returned that love, for he feels for her deeply and feels for her as he does Fandral, Hogun and their departed comrade the thought of whose loss still stings him.

Sif is asking him not for passion but for trust. That he lends easily. He trusts no one more. He lowers his hands to his sides but tips his head, a wrinkle in his brow as he banishes dark thoughts and seeks out the good.

"I make him happy. We will not be unhappy," he says, and the words ring true. He softens, dwelling upon he and Loki's months as lovers. "Before all this came to pass he had begun to relent when I took the risk of romancing him. Whatever schisms await in the coming millennia, I can still promise him years of joy."

A buoyant smile spreads across Sif's lips. Her eyes wander in reverie. A memory claimed, she tilts her head toward him, brow playfully high.

"The morning I woke with my hair as black as soot I had never been so furious," she says. "I confess that at that age I had only a fledgling notion of _true_ fury. I remember his smile, his mocking laughter, such cruelty in his voice and such _pride_." Sif shakes her head. "As the years turned, I stopped thinking about how I cracked his skull that day when I gazed on myself in a looking glass. My hair is beautiful. I _adore_ my hair, Thor. How it shines." Color overtakes the shieldmaiden's cheeks, her smile growing embarrassed. Vanity is not a trait to boast of. She lowers her voice accordingly. "I should never say it but to you how common are golden haired girls with milky skin." 

Thor mischeviously joins her in smiling.

"You and he are wondrous beauties. By making your hair to match his…"

Sif stands straight to preen, lifting her chin, a love for competition brightening her eyes.

"She created the best of her rivals. She becomes _furious_ if we match colors. You'd think standing out the less among a crowd is a fatal affliction. She's worse than Fandral."

Thor's laughter enheartens him.

"…thank you, Sif." He looks to the grazing mare, frowning, returning his thoughts to their sojourn's purpose. "No doubt Sleipnir has scouted a great range."

He does not look forward to his nephew's return when he puts his fingers twain his lips and whistles.

**(Now: Glaðsheimr)**

The dim, curtain-hung hall preceding the floor of the throne room is a place Thor and Loki share a life-long familiarity with. Loki remembers dashing among the curtains playing 'catch me if you can' while Frigga put the final touches on Odin's ceremonial dress. After seeing her husband was in order, she'd ensure the same about her two, and later three, boys.

Frigga had not publically shared the burden of ruling with her king. She adjudicated court business off the floor, ensuring the Allfather never need deal with unnecessary distractions. Loki saw in time that this was an essential element of Asgard's governmental functions. Odin trusted no other with his closest affairs.

Loki learned, too, that that was intimately connected with the fact that no other – lest they be a fool – could raise their voice at or rebuke the Allfather.

He loved but is not his deceased mother. He affirms to himself while standing waiting for his betrothed that he will share equal power in the sight of the public with Thor. If it seems otherwise he is willing to make trouble. He sincerely expects no problem. Whatever Realm they be in Thor is certain to pass over the throne any day the crown is required to preside over complicated legal affairs.

Loki has just been two months in Jötunheimr, setting his affairs in order. With the Cask he carries within him he raised the capital city in the ancient way. He impressed his people in that task. Older Jötnar spoke to each other and the young in amazement, complementing his complete mastery of the aesthetic spirit of their long-leveled city. Their king shrouded his bitterness and took credit for the miracle. Should Mephisto ever come to him claiming he facilitated Loki's growing popularity Loki intends to credit his own acute memory and powers of observation.

He gave personal attention to ensuring the prosperity of herdsmen. Closely related was a great lot of penitence, all in veneration of Aurgelmir. He performed rituals over the scar he left in their progenitor's body and built with his own hands what he'd never dreamed to build: His birth parent's memorial. 

His only memories of Laufey are of cruel, suspicious eyes and of his hateful gloating in Odin's chamber before Gungnir reduced him to naught. Býleistr spoke of a king bold in warfare in his youth who hardened into a grim survivor; how it was impermissible for one Jötunn to hunger more than another under Laufey's rule. He spoke of their progenitor as stern and unforgiving for the sake of love, hard on Býleistr but harder on Helblindi. Sitting close to Loki on a bench in their halls, Býleistr confided Helblindi spoke of Loki's birth and Laufey's confession to his eldest son: _I saw my death upon that day._

"It is as the Norns intended for us," Býleistr said. Loki chose not to relate his own opinions of the weavers of Fate.

Today, the day of his wedding, he is at last returned to Asgard. He wears that armor bequeathed him by Mephisto, shined until even here in the dimness it gleams. He cannot deny he and Mephisto share the vice of vanity and knows no craftsman could better flatter his body. Having confessed its origin to Thor, he confessed, too, he also confessed it better to keep it.

Loki never imagined who and however he married he would be in a body that, while not so disgusting as he first thought and powerful in a way he cannot but admire, still disquiets him with its eldritch lack of anatomy, bedecked in attire forged by the creature with which he committed infidelity against his now-fiancée.

That unpleasantry fades in face of the fact that the wedding ceremony is not for his pleasure nor for Thor's. It is a performance to quell the terrors of defeated and scattered peoples. Loki can only hope his wedding night may be spent in triumph and joy. He can no longer fathom the desperation with which he longs for his brother's embrace, both fraternally and sensually.

He has been half the morning in front of the mirror, meticulously refining his crystalline form.

Having no eyebrows, he has in their place raised a ridge of ice which looks not unlike two facets of a crown. They are before and beneath horns shaped completely of ice. With sadness and in memory he shaped them not in resemblance his own royal helmet but instead the helm of his father: forward curving, curled back at the tips. Arms, legs and bare chest he has ornamented, recalling armor he has worn in the past.

Although he despises his body less, he is reluctant to say he is beautiful. He is certain he is impressive. That is all that he must be.

He glances back as he hears Thor approach, his brother decked in his own regalia. 

Loki is not alone in recalling their predecessor. Thor has had armor forged from warmer metals, no longer as silver as in the past. He has spent the morning and yesterday being put again and again into his ceremonial dress while Álfr and dwarf toiled at last minute alterations. Thor prefers scale armor and leather but this is, without discarding those elements, generously endowed with plate. Loki studies the breastplate in remembrance.

After Thor has taken in Loki he smiles. It does a little to soothe Loki's apprehensions over having decorated his Jötunn body for the first time.

"How do I look?" he asks, knowing he'll hear the truth of it in Thor's tone.

"Like a king," Thor says, proud and genuine.

Loki lets the pang of sorrow over the years recently passed have sway of him only a moment, then bids it leave. Thor shares with him an understanding look.

It is only when Thor animates, straightening, and Loki's emotions no longer hold sway that he realizes he has missed that his brother is hiding something behind his back – almost always the kind of detail his mind first jumps to. Thor is grinning.

"I'm sorry, so many years later, that our wedding doesn't involve… Wait, what's this?"

Loki cannot obscure how Thor's flirtation enthralled him, his gaze captured by the artifact Thor has produced. He raises his hand, reaching toward it, but hesitates, seeing he's betrayed wanting it overmuch. Thor holds his gift out patiently until Loki takes it from him to marvel over it with more composure.

He holds in his frozen hands the crown he's been given: hammered from silver, richly detailed and hung with embroidered ribbons decked, of all things, with golden serpents in elaborate traditional style. He remembers the arm ring he long ago wore so gleefully on his head, decked in Sif's secretly appropriated dress. A sudden, fierce want to demand everything delayed until he is curves and black tresses, green eye-shadow and black lipstick and nails and in a dazzling hand-stitched gown with such embroidery on her shoulders and supporting her breasts as never seen in history overtakes him.

Frustration stymies him.

"If I _could_ wear a bridal crown."

"Focus on the future and all the ridiculously work intensive dresses you will deserve while a queen. Álfr hands will bleed from the work – not on the dress, but bleed."

Loki's icy lips fracture into a smile and he eyes Thor's helmeted head.

"I would wear it if there were any way," Thor promises. Thor is nary so dense to miss that entire event is deadly serious: politically charged. He rests his hand upon the small of Loki's icy back while Loki resigns himself to admiring his present in the interim in which they await summons to perform their marriage before Æsir, Vanir, Jötnar and Álfr.

Sif will sanctify their wedding, and they will consecrate an animal that will live as a sacred symbol of their matrimony – Sleipnir's youngest filly. They will exchange finger rings, these rune consecrated by Dvergar craftsmen. They will together hold the hilt of the sword that long ago Odin held with Freyja and speak vows. This is the most important of all: At this moment peace is sworn between their houses and with their houses their kingdoms.

It is the moment that the divide between Jötunheimr and Asgard both ceremonially and legally disappears.

Loki can hear the cheers of the great crowd ahead and above them. Speeches are being given on the histories of Jötunheimr and Asgard. Both may be depopulated, but the visitors from other realms make for a full crowd.

Loki looks up at the open end of the hallway, frowning in philosophical thought.

"I hope I'm not intended to consummate our union while made all of ice."

"Oh? All else aside, I would think you'd enjoy having me writhing, ice upon everything."

Loki sees the virtue but too deeply longs for the familiarity of sex with his lover, so very long denied.

"My flesh is more than sufficient for making you writhe," he says.

His spirits rise considerably. Thor is right to look on him in suspicion. Loki's smile turns sweet:

"It's important someone loses their virginity on a wedding night."

\----

After his meditation and the working of his magic a naked Loki takes his seat beside Thor in their chamber.

"Successful acclimatization or no, I am relieved to be in a supple body, appreciating the fire and breathing air."

Thor shushes Loki with a kiss, Loki eager to be shushed.

Thor's mind teems with the contemplations which arose during his wait. Their marital ceremony reminded him they are both at their best when attended by a roaring crowd. Kingship could have a civilizing effect on them both. They are now sworn to each other definitely, no matter whether or not they're at each other's throats from month to month. Thor has dearly missed the taste of Loki's skin, holding his brother's body through the night, never wanting for companionship…

Giving wounds time to scab over in the open air matters, be they of the flesh or the heart, but Thor at his angriest never desired to be parted from Loki and ready to forgive – although not forget.

When they pause from their kissing, Loki's low voice comes like a velvety caress.

"The matter of plucking flowers."

Thor involuntarily shifts his thighs upon their hard couch and a thrill races up his spine, echoing the thrill first sparked in the antechamber.

"You sound committed to your course of action."

Loki rolls onto his side, barely-felt fingers making their way down Thor's breastplate to be felt acutely when they slide over the bulge in his trousers. Loki grasps him, making mischief with a slow rolling motion against Thor's swiftly attentive genitals but across the fabric's surface. 

"Brother, tradition demands it."

Arousal as ablaze as it may be, Thor meets this claim with a skeptical look.

"Tradition has not one word to say about the appropriate occasion upon which to 'deflower' your older brother."

Loki leans in like a fox stalking a hare, eyes locked with Thor's.

"I am king, and _I_ say it's the night you marry him."

Thor gestures, skepticism unrelenting, to his own person.

Loki scoffs.

"I've been king longer. And twice. I'm allowing this be a partnership, but I have an indisputable claim on seniority in _this_ area."

Thor finds it damned difficult to mount an argument when Loki's hands are still working the textured material of his trousers against his stiffening cock, fingernails scraping the thick cloth, fingertips giving him a firm lift, rubbing circles that, with their persistence, have Thor slumped against the back of the couch, small, frustrated noises in his throat.

He should have, he thinks, become naked along with Loki much earlier, but he had an uncertain wait and after a day made long by event after event and with wine in his belly he had sat upon the couch, succumbed to languor, let his thoughts wander and watched the fire.

It's Loki's turn to sit back lazily while Thor stands and undresses, the whole processes, in his mind, unusually extended, time distorted, when undressing alone and under close observation. He thinks he is now, for the first time, comfortable with all Loki's proposition entails. It is, he realizes, because Loki is himself so relaxed. He is certain he would not entrust his body to a Loki whose demeanor promised pitfalls into pique and malice.

\----

Loki runs his finger across his lips as he makes his appraisal of Thor's increasing nudity, sly smile hanging lopsided, tongue wetting it in anticipation.

Thor is, in the opinion of many and also of Loki, physically flawless. The muscles of his chest segue smoothly into his bulging shoulders. His nipples, all pebbled up, accentuate the ridge that provides such awesome power to his hammer swings. His barrel chest is scored by the groove running between his finely shaped abdominals, the dark hairs that gradually become the curls where his generous cock would nest were it not so suffused with blood start just below the little bowl of his belly button and, blonde as he is, he has suitable enough hair upon his forearms and calves and very lightly on his thighs to compliment the masculinity of his fast-to-thicken beard. 

Loki is fortunate to be here. Gratitude infuses every fiber of his being. Distance until his departure for Jötunheimr and two months alone, burrowed in snow in place of bathing in the heat of Thor's body through the night, has rooted _that_ firmly in his mind. He has, since banished to suffer such unbearable longing, accrued a surplus of good behavior.

He grins at Thor's cautious, sidelong look. His brother's eyes – if not clouded by anger or lust for battle – are not only sharp but lit with that sensitive, inquisitive look which dissipates only if he has provoked others into laughter. Loki knows, as one with two thousand years to study an ever-present subject might know, that in the most private sphere of his life Thor's self-esteem is often on the wing, looking for affirmation of his worth on which to alight. In the now, Thor is bolstered by Loki's enthusiasm, Loki's grin reflected on Thor's face.

Loki has ever had to steal his own self-esteem like a thief. He couldn't say which approach is best.

(Better, he surmises, to simply be Fandral.)

Loki drops his gaze to Thor's considerable _aft_ assets, chuckling silently, shoulders shaking, at his lover's fleeting embarrassment. Loki has seen that look on many a proud warrior before; when for the first time his buttocks are being evaluated against new standards.

They wear an attractive curve, developed muscles granting shape to Thor's hips that Loki's comparatively lack.

He could, here and now, have them anywhere and any _way_ , but he thinks of his husband's conservative preferences. Having him bent over all kinds of things has to wait. Love them though Loki may, even for Loki it's an inappropriate time for a power play.

Thor has relaxed, embarrassment fading into expectation. Loki gestures invitingly toward the bedroom, standing and following as Thor takes instruction. The younger god lifts the metal vial of oil from the bedside table in passing, chest swelling with joy and excitement, heart picking up its pace.

He has been long away, and so the likelihood that Thor other than set the vial out especially for tonight is low. Indescribable pleasure wins him knowing that although he has been particularly wretched in the near past he was missed and is wanted.

Thor falls onto the bed, rolling onto his back and grinning Loki's way, brows playfully raised. Loki wastes no time coming after him. He sits astride him, attacking his lips in a kiss – as much drinking from his mouth as kissing – immediately deep and unrelentingly hungry. His hair falls around them in curtains.

He has no need for his hands, only leverage, so he fiddles open the oil, smearing his fingers with it and closing it secure. He drops it in the depression made by Thor's body in their mattress. This oil is not for the crevasse of Thor's buttocks. Instead Loki, now bracing a hand upon the bed for better traction, smears it over his lover's breast, tracing frictionless circles around one dark little nipple. Thor's body flinches upward beneath him. The groan in Thor's throat assures approval. 

For some minutes Loki can't bear to break away from his love, but finally desists, chest roiling with relief, longing, love, yes, but, too, a sinuous, lingering curl of desperation. His breath comes heavy. Thor seems to understand him – at least enough. He reaches up and brushes his thumb across Loki's brow, smiling sedately, for there is sorrow in this smile. Loki swallows.

He lets the moment pass and moves ahead. Flirtation colors his voice.

"I don't guess it came to your mind to practice?"

Thor laughs, not embarrassed of this, relating:

"In the bath. Only with my fingers. Not extensively."

Loki wears the wickedest of grins.

"What a pity for you, when I'm extensive."

"You've made a fine case for pleasure to be had being bedded by a man with the way you constantly beg for it."

"Then let's discover if I've bestowed the correct impression upon you."

Loki picks up the oil, shifting down the bed, leaving Thor's huge torso rising and falling with his breath, one breast gleaming. He draws his knees over Thor's thighs to kneel between them. Thor pulls them out of the way, but not to the extent necessary for Loki to do his work.

Lightly slicking his hand Loki spends attention on his brother's tall cock, thinking fondly indeed of his hips stretched open by its girth. It is Thor's muscular stomach he is more interested in watching – how the strongly-articulated muscles clench and relax; Thor's expression, too, curious while sometimes swimming out of focus with arousal, deliciously just-pouty-enough lower lip touched by a frown of concentration.

"Now, husband, open your thighs for me," Loki says, still smug and evil with a hand idly gliding up and down Thor's erection.

It takes much more of Thor's attention to comply than it would were Loki not stoking the fire in his cock. Loki's own throbs for want of flesh to bury itself in as Thor, grunting each time he refocuses his attention, shifts his weight on the mattress, suitably parting and bringing up his thighs. The first sheen of sweat shows on his monumental body. Thor in a state of distraction, Loki carefully pampers him. He can measure by Thor's panting breath how naked his brother feels exposing himself for the first time with every motion painted erotic by the manipulation of his cock. 

Loki releases the turgid erection before him, smile for the moment kinder.

"No, on the Helicarrier wouldn't have done at all. _This_ is for my private enjoyment."

He at last oils his fingers for their central task. 

He could not have better flesh to work. The skin of Thor's inner thighs is not so tan as the rest although daylight has spent its time upon it. Aside from swimming opponents may strip down to spar. What no one but Loki has witnessed is Thor breathlessly awaiting a man's touch at the flesh hidden deepest.

For someone like Thor, sex involves developing respect for a partner and then an abundance of physical enthusiasm until orgasms have been fairly distributed. That's an approach to sex. It's a thoughtless approach limited in ambition, but a mode of physicality.

Loki has more artistic ambitions when lovemaking.

He chooses to press his index finger to the pink hole that's been twitching with anticipation since exposed to the air. Thor breathes in. His body moves in a single writhe on the mattress. The relief on his expression broadcasts the success Loki achieved at parting him while arresting apprehensions in his mind.

"All the very naughty things I could start out by putting in here, your face an 'o' of disbelief, your body shaking. Another day." 

He is giddy watching thoughts race behind Thor's eyes as meanwhile his finger slides in and is gradually drawn out, the thin skin dragged to follow it as if longing for it not to go.

"When this is my cock you'll feel like your world is tumbling upside down every time I drag your bowels backward with me – the peril of your body being so tight and myself well endowed."

He eases in a second slippery finger, relishing the effects of his taunting. Thor's anus spasms helplessly around him – heartwarming, actually. Loki can barely estimate how long ago he mastered himself to simply relax so that if he had only time to push his trousers down in the armory to be backed by someone eager and handsome it didn't haunt his walk for days afterward.

Loki withholds articulating that appreciation. He thinks reminding Thor of his many-storied sexual history featuring hundreds of actors and actresses in roles of every kind would diminish their present intimacy.

He opens his fingers inside his brother, pushing Thor's little pucker open. Thor's thighs twitch; so does Loki's cock. It's a delicate step in the process. Stretch a man unevenly with too much enthusiasm and someone ends up with a sore ass.

"Have you considered me sliding up and down the oiled hilt of Mjölnir while stroking myself until I release my seed upon the rugs?" Loki asks. A giggle shakes him at Thor's noise of bewilderment – he has appropriately distracted him for sliding a third and final finger in. "I would wash it with _great_ care. I'm resigned to the fact I can never wield it in the same way _you_ do…"

Thor groans as Loki diligently works him open, grimacing but abdomen flexing, betraying how relentlessly Loki has aroused him.

"From where do you even conjure such a thought?"

"That sounds like the first step to consent," Loki says, withdrawing his fingers. When next he lubes his fingertips it is for slicking Thor's surrounding skin so nothing sticks where it shouldn't. Excitement swells in not only his cock but his breast; he salivates thinking of being atop a man of Thor's raw physical prowess – all the more important, that man is _Thor_.

His husband.

\----

"Do not say you are aught but well prepared," Loki says, looking up Thor's body as he moves his own into place.

"I will not say that," Thor swears, voice hoarse.

Loki bids Thor adjust his body with small, cool touches and Thor consents, brow pursed, mind anticipating the first pressure of the soft head of Loki's cock.

"Watch _me_ ," Loki chides sweetly. The heat returns to Thor's cheeks as he attends upon his little brother. Loki's eyes, green in the light, capture his full attention. Confidence alone lights Loki's gaze – a particular intensity of attention.

Thor draws panting breaths between his parted lips and he is touched, next, by soft cool skin upon that flesh where Loki's touch has been so generous. Loki's eyes hold his own, magnetism unbroken by the next shifts of Loki's body and the opening of Thor's. Thor inhales a shaky breath when his body stretches open wide. His reeling thoughts deny that there is more of Loki than this yet his brother presses onward, weight shifting forward toward Thor's upper body.

Thor realizes his excited body is a poor estimator of inches, a realization betrayed by the widening of his eyes. Loki grins, ebullient. Adoration subsumes Thor's chest so that Thor is eager for the rest even though the girth of Loki's cock seems so remarkable Thor feels unprecedentedly full.

His overwhelming attraction brings greater color to his skin. The heat has spread from Thor's cheeks onto his chest. He never meets the specter of shame. His own heavy erection brushes Loki's stomach. Thor feels entirely a man.

His mirth-filled brother rewards him by leveraging against him so that he may place a single, pleased kiss upon Thor's lips that breaks with a soft but wet sound.

"My lover," Loki begs pardon. He simultaneously has begun to move above and within him, the feelings pitted in Thor's stomach as well as Thor's flesh are dragged with the momentum of Loki's thrusts. "Now I would bid you look down my body, except I cannot bear to part eyes with you," Loki says. Thor marvels at the sound of those unguarded words not because Loki's impassioned voice is unfamiliar to him but because Loki has been spontaneously romantic.

Thor recognizes his liberty to move – that moving will not diminish the intensity shared between them. His powerful muscles flex underneath Loki's rocking weight. His breath catches at unfamiliar sensations as his startled body pleads to him it is stretched much too wide only to pleasurably learn that that isn't true at all.

Loki's hands caress Thor's body and Thor now lifts his own to Loki's, his little brother's flexing anatomy passing beneath his palms as they explore where they are wont. He sinks embroiled in the allure of the mingled blues and browns of Loki's eyes that so often reflect green. Loki's gaze remains upon him with captivating intensity.

Loki's smile warms as does his flesh beneath Thor's touch. Next they are kissing, mouths bathing one another in familiar adoration. Thor's eyes close. From his throat rise groans of pleasure, every physical sensation heightened when he devotes his attention to the ways Loki unceasingly moves atop, against and within him.

His lover's thrusts are backed by greater power in answer, the sounds of their bodies colliding and the squelching of the oil growing louder with Loki's fresh vigor. Muscles clenching with sensation, Thor's knees draw up and further apart, provoking eager noises of approval. Loki's knees push against the mattress beneath them, buying him better traction as his strokes deepen.

Their strong bodies remain in flux, their mouth passionate and increasingly wet. Loki bears down harder yet with his hips and hands and mouth, pressures Thor welcomely supports.

It is miraculous to feel Loki so completely. Thor's mind remains rapt to those myriad places their bodies meet and, in their sweat, stick.

The demands Loki's hips make against Thor and the deepening of his strokes become increasingly involuntary. Loki's fingers spasm. Loki voices greater throaty approval. Loki spends himself inside his brother; Thor can feel his lover's cock pumping within the tight-stretched clutch of his hard-worked, flinching ring of muscle.

Neither lover finds the provocation to cease their now-messy kissing. A bead of sweat runs between Thor's pectorals. Loki continues thrusting, irregularly now. Their fingers drag indentations against one another's skin.

Thor gradually begins to pay greater mind to the ever-present hot ache of his own cock only to be interrupted by Loki's long, torturous withdrawal from his bowels. He protests with a groan of a new tenor as Loki pushes away from him, but when he opens his eyes and meets Loki's enamored gaze his complaints fall away before they're matched to words.

"Do I _ever_ neglect your cock?" Loki asks, one dark eyebrow rising higher than the other, a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

"Not in my memory," Thor says. Calculated torture such as this does not count as neglect, for it accompanies Loki thinking three steps ahead – something Thor wonders in passing if he might engage in, himself, if Loki's paranoia less often demanded unceasing efforts at assuagement. 

It is sweet agony to slowly lower his legs. They ache. His hips rise reflexively in answer to his rigid and aching cock's hot longing.

Loki shushes the organ and Thor's hips grudgingly relax quite without conscious input on the part of Thor, leaving Thor bathing motionlessly in pleasure but for taking in long draughts of cooling air. He is too at ease, however he longs for touch, to articulate any specific accusations about Loki's uncanny influence on his nether regions.

"Eyes, brother," Loki prompts, obviously having mesmerized only Thor's more carnal half. Loki drops his gaze to where he is taking Thor in hand, then raises it meaningfully, prompting Thor to dizzily refocus on Loki's grasp upon his erection.

He feels Loki's gaze on his face and realizes – accompanied by a flash of heat through his cock – that his recently-expended lover has devised quite the voyeuristic event. His tongue wets a lower lip in no need of wetting as Loki's elegant hand begins to stroke him, traveling the full length of his shaft. The bright glans of his leaking cock disappear into Loki's grasp and reappear again, a profound sight when Thor discovers himself watching closely for the first signs he has been coaxed to come even while his eager flesh keeps him thoroughly informed that no – not yet. Not _just_ yet.

He must marshal his over-eagerness. He allows his hips to thrust freely as bid by Loki's hand while Loki's devilish touch lures him closer to his orgasm.

"Watch, Thor," Loki coos. Thor is not closely familiar with the sight of his own cock in the act of expending itself but forces his gaze rapt so that although he may blink heavily he sees in flashes of sight the ropey strings of pearlescent come arching in the air before falling hot onto his stomach while his orgasm passes through him, an eruption of pleasure.

It is over. Its aftermath floods his veins with drowsy satisfaction. The smile breaking on Loki's lips catches his eyes and he raises them to his gloating lover.

The emptiness the withdrawal of Loki has left inside him leaps to the fore of Thor's thoughts. Loki's eyes are proud and lively and flicker away only that he can run two fingers through the fresh and thick semen on Thor's abdomen.

Next Loki has shifted up the bed as subtly as a cat. He presses his warm, wet fingers to Thor's lower lip and Thor, mystified, allows him side them into his mouth, obediently suckling them clean of his own bitter seed.

It is as surrealistic as if he was a participant in one of Loki's spells, yet he feels no magic being worked. His impish and thoroughly pleased brother startles him to the point of exclamation when he withdraws and lowers himself to Thor's belly, licking the rest of that cum away – although at first his cool tongue feels only to be smearing it.

Thor is left with the throb of his pulse in the skin of both his fading erection and stretched anus and the sound and sensations of Loki's busy tongue.

"Your toying with me shall drive me mad," he swears. He wins succor, for his brother climbs his body to be brought into his arms and there rests peaceably, smile so at ease Thor barely recognizes Loki's well-beloved face.

"I thought, until now, I could achieve a… certain kind of satisfaction only through exacting pain upon unwilling others," Loki says openly, his head at rest near Thor's.

Thor speaks with caution.

"I wish but dare not believe again I have mended the sadist within you."

Loki looks annoyed in passing, but happy to correct him – becoming childish where moments ago he was so assertively sexual.

" _I_ dare believe that while the sadist survives all variety of power exchanged in play wards me against my blacker, vile and dangerous yearnings."

The recognition that his husband intends to abet him in staving off his worst self rends Thor's lonely heart. Testing first that Loki will allow him, Thor kisses him with all the urgency of desperation – an urgency Loki rises to and matches. He can never allow Loki's good intentions to blind him to the threat of catastrophe, but some part of Thor feared Loki would grudge him for denying him the Tesseract's absolute solution.

Their shared pain is not borne upon tears but by the pressure of their lips against each other's lips and with which their hands grasp one another's bodies.

In time these fears, spent, pass. They are both breathing heavily, mutual in the quietness of their embrace.

Thor strokes his brother's sweat-wet hair.

"Remember, my queen, I deny you extract from me pain."

Loki grins, playful and glad, tracing fingertips – and fingernails – along Thor's jaw, through the stubble of his beard.

"Those urges are mine, but you know what to do to quell them with your body and arms. I say to you only: Do not minutes afterward forget, husband-king, securing my supplication requires continued indulgences."

Loki licks the rough skin covered by Thor's beard with a scraping sound. Loki's hand travels the hard contours of Thor's skin

"My genius sexual plans for my husband span decades. Oh, but those whimpers and cries to come."

**(Days Later: Asgard)**

The night fire burns on the open-air terrace. Thor holds his glass of mulled wine in hand. The pitcher is set between him and Loki.

On another couch sit Sif, Fandral and his wife, Agent Darcy Lewis, who has her legs across his lap and, leaning back against the arm of the couch, is using a Stark tablet to keep up with her work for the United Earth Contingency Government while Asgard side. The electronic glow lights her features, reflecting off her glasses.

Hogun sits beside the fire, having brought fresh rutabagas and, after piecing them apart, set about roasting them at the edge of the fire. They have less liberty to go camping, but the familiar scent carries with it nostalgia.

Loki sips his wine, brow creased in thought. Something has been heavy on his mind since morning, but having extended the obligatory 'Is all well?' and been brushed away he is fated to wait until Loki comes forward with it on his own time.

"Thor, you are King of Asgard in a politically expedient marriage to the King of Jötunheimr – a term used loosely since the entire race is not traditionally sexed," Loki says.

The gravity in Loki's voice is disproportionate to how obvious a statement he has made. It is this that warns Thor Loki does not anticipate him liking what follows.

Attention has generally shifted to the two of them. Darcy only looks up a moment, but her ear is doubtlessly open as she returns to her screen.

Loki goes on in a straightforward way, speaking to Thor face to face.

"You have to get children on me. At least two, because there must be at _least_ one for their uncle Býleistr to foster and Asgard won't stand for its only heir to be in Jötunheimr. We should be prudent and look toward three or four, for future tragedies may unexpectedly befall us."

Thor looks from Loki to the serious countenances of Hogun, Sif and Fandral. Finding no advice there he looks back to his undoubtedly serious brother.

"You're talking about _me_ getting _you_ with child."

Loki exhales exasperation, momentarily pressing his lips together.

"With _four_ children. You're obviously not listening," he says.

Thor wishes to protest the disparity of Loki having all day or days to think upon it and choosing to put him on the spot in front of an audience, but he doesn't expect fairness from Loki. Floundering he tries to mount a response that won't result in Loki storming out.

"—now?"

Marginally pacified, Loki, showing strain, looks away into the shadowed wine in his goblet. He remains short.

"Clearly not. We're with company. Anyway, I need at least thirty minutes for shape shifting and adopting the right mindset."

"He isn't being facetious, your majesty. Four is a conservative number in the history of kings," Sif says.

"I'll have to start thinking about tooth-gifts," Fandral says.

"You're not being very considerate, Loki," Darcy says, yet enthralled with her Stark pad. "You should ask if he wants to be the mother of some of them. You can make that happen, right?"

Thor feels moreso that Loki has cornered him in a disadvantageous position.

"May we take serious council on this matter? I comprehend the expectation upon us, and Loki speaks the truth, but there are a host of reasons to allow us time to—"

"Are there?" Loki demands, his voice cracking.

Thor catches himself, startled silent. Because the children will be half-breeds? Because Loki's moods, when pregnant, are tempestuous as volcanic eruptions? Because peace between Asgard and Jötunheimr is still tenuous, old grudges lying just under the skin? Because Loki is ultimately untrustworthy and the security of their marriage also tenuous?

There is no reason to think those reasons will be budged by a score of years or even a century.

"No," Thor says.

Loki has dropped his wine and is upon him, heedless of any company, kissing him slow but mouth begging Thor's to never speak apprehensions that would cause him crippling pain. Thor encircles Loki's waist with his arms, his kisses consolations until the fears wracking their minds and tearing with cold claws in their breasts abate.

He is, Thor sees anew again, incomparable. His dark brow overshadows endlessly expressive, luminous eyes. His lips, thin, look delicate until a smiles spreads upon them, filling his face and the room with his happiness or malice – or they gape with thought-stealing sensuality. His carved features and his hairline, in the pattern produced by aggressive masculinity, swear to the world that were he not to willingly adopt his curvaceous female body he could easily be the more virile of them two.

Thor finally lets himself think of the courtly beauty that is his sometimes-sister and his queen accepting his seed inside her, with each child swelling over the months with a precious new life empowered by blood to unite worlds – and if Thor is very lucky two people – so often divided.

"I will be proud," Thor swears.

Their dear friends are – out of respect and for a time – silent.


End file.
